


The Lay of Vigga Freyrsdottir

by CopperCrane2, SCGdoeswhat



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sailor Moon Fusion, Angst, Angst and Humor, F/M, Gen, Humor, Past Character Death, Vikings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-02-07 08:23:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21454975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperCrane2/pseuds/CopperCrane2, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SCGdoeswhat/pseuds/SCGdoeswhat
Summary: Vigga, famous shieldmaiden and daughter of the god Freyr, is far from home when she learns of her husband's death.Now she's on a quest to save his soul.Inspired by the excellent art of scgdoeswhat. Venus x Kunzite. Sailor Moon characters in a viking AU.
Relationships: Aino Minako & Jadeite, Aino Minako/Kunzite, Chiba Mamoru & Sailor Senshi, Chiba Mamoru & Shitennou, Chiba Mamoru/Tsukino Usagi, Hino Rei/Jadeite, Inner Senshi & Shitennou, Kino Makoto/Nephrite, Mizuno Ami/Zoisite, Senshi/Shitennou, Tsukino Usagi & Inner Senshi, Tsukino Usagi & Shitennou
Comments: 8
Kudos: 10
Collections: Senshi & Shitennou Reverse Mini Bang 2019





	1. The Berserker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Solvig 'Vigga' Freyrsdottir = Minako  
Kætil Drengsson = Kunzite
> 
> Art by the amazing scgsayswhat

_ She does not want to be here. Not again. She’s fighting hard, tired. Her sword is already dull with sticky guts and sinew, hands stained and hilt slippery with blood, the blade nicked to near uselessness by metal and bone. The battle’s dragging on — the opposition have the higher ground and the larger numbers but familiarity tells her her side will win the day. _

_ She knows this place intimately: the vibrancy of the foreign, green hills, the cries of the dying, the throbbing pain of her shield arm. She hates it, fears it for what it means. Surrounding her is the stench of human toil: Iron. Mud. Salt. Shit. Her ears ring deaf and her lungs burn, but she knows she is dreaming. This is a memory, recalled already a hundred times. A steel grey cloud darkens the sky and she screams at it, furious, despairing. Weak. She is heartsick at the mere thought of what comes next. If she could take a knife and cut the organ from her body she would. She would rip out the pain and never feel it again. _

_ The air changes quickly, knowingly, becoming heavy. _

_ The fighting is not what is important here. She does not want to look, but it’s the only way she can see him now, so she does. _

_ There, in the distance, atop the hill where the enemy once stood, a congress of ravens circle in raucous flight. They surround a hooded figure, visible only in glimpses, flickering in between wild, black wings. He is tall, proud. White-haired and strong, in his prime. _

_ Kætil. _

_ The fight leaves her. The grips on her sword and shield loosen and she waits for the blow she knows will come from behind. _

_ It does not. _

_ She stands confused, afraid, until she finds herself surrounded by ravens and the familiar warmth of his presence. The battle is far behind her. “My love,” she says. Unwilling to waste the opportunity she drops her weapons and takes his face into her hands, meeting his silver eyes, unblinking, “stay with me here, even if it’s just for a while. Don’t leave me alone, again.” _

_ “Wake up, Sölvig.” His voice is deep and booming, scattering the ravens. “He is coming.” _

** _Art by the amazing scgsayswhat_ **

She’s thrown from the dream, jarred unwillingly into consciousness. For the blink of an eye she’s disoriented but the howl of the wind, her hungry belly and the cold in her bones are quick to remind her of where she is. She drops her head back into the thin fur, drained and frustrated by the strangeness of the memory and of the implications of Kætil’s warning. _ It’s too early in the day for a fight. _It’s also too dark, though the sun’s likely to drift over the horizon soon. Perhaps whatever’s coming can wait until that happens. 

It doesn’t. 

_ Shit. _

She feels its presence as it nears. Even more so, she smells it. _ It’s probably a bear, _she thinks, knowing her luck. “Don’t damage my tent! It’s wolfskin and it’s all I have,” she yells, dragging herself up to sit and tossing her blonde braid back with a lazy flick of her hand. She’s stiff all over, but she always is when she sleeps fully armed. “I am coming out now, just… give me leave… to-” she debates using Kætil’s sword, in case the impending fight turns out to be useful for her quest, but as unfamiliar as she is with her own sword, she’s even less used his, “to, uh, fix-” she decides to hide it under the fur, in case whatever approaches is more prone to thieving than fighting, “my boots?”

In the face of such a poor attempt at stalling, the enemy not only continues to advance but decides to dispense with stealth altogether. It starts running towards her, stomping through the snow. Whatever it is, it sounds big. 

_ Damn it. _

Vigga rolls out of the shelter and retreats as quickly as she can. She rushes to the centre of the clearing, her back to the dawn as she’s followed by her mystery predator, and only stops when he does. 

She finds herself in an odd, temporary state of stalemate, driven entirely by mutual curiosity. They’re both eager to assess each other before the fight begins. She squints visibly through the dimness to get a good look at him. “You’re not a bear,” she summises, almost disappointed. “I thought you might be.” 

He won’t be any less of a challenge: despite the murky light of the rising sun she can tell he’s balding, which probably makes him old, although not necessarily, and if he’s been surviving out here he’s likely to still have a lot of fight left in him. So that’s not exactly reliable information. What she does know for certain is that he’s monstrous in size. 

He also reeks of rot, of sour musk and the sweet putridness of death. She’s not surprised given his clothing is rigid and cracked with the remains of what she assumes must be his kills. “You’re not really a man, either,” she notes as she spies his leather shoes. She doesn’t want to ask what animal they’re made out of. “Are you a draugr?” she wonders. If he is, there’ll be something for her to gain by this. She can look for his barrow later and then loot it on the return journey home. 

“No!” he barks, but she doesn’t believe him. His voice is guttural, as if it has not been used in some time. He tries to say something else too, but it’s lost to the sudden whistle of an icy gust and the incomprehensibility of his own garble… none of which really help the plausibility of his denial. The sun, however, chooses that moment to finally reveal itself, and in the pale blue aurora she realises that his eyes are not hollow, but bloodshot, that his skin is ruddy and thick. So he’s definitely alive. “Are you sure you’re not?” she asks anyway, just to get a rise out of him, “because you certainly sound like you’re one of the undead.”

“I am Bjarke,” he announces, “the giant!”

He is sweating in spite of the cold, which is odd to her, until she realises he has likely drunk a poison or elixir of some kind. The clues come together quickly enough: alone, feral, an induced state of manic violence...

Berserker_. _

So he’s like this on _ purpose_. 

She eyes their surroundings. He wants her to make the first move before he pounces, that much is certain, but in waiting for her he’s fighting against his own impatience, and that’s not going to last very long. The forest’s clearly his territory, she has a sneaking suspicion he has some speed on him, too, so running isn’t an option. She spots no weapons, which gives her an advantage (since she happens to have many on her person and a few hidden in her tent), but his fists are the size of club heads… and he’s gleefully shoving one of them into his pants while he stares at her. _ Urgh. _

Vigga really wishes he’d been a bear. 

He’s obviously a close-range fighter, which isn’t great since she’s not the tallest of Danes and the one weapon she doesn’t have is a spear; amped up on whatever he’s taken he’ll be strong— even stronger than he looks, which is already substantial considering he has biceps almost as thick as his own head —his age be damned, she won’t stand a chance if he catches her. She’ll need to dispense with him quickly if she’s to survive. 

Hopefully he’s not smart. “I’ve only just met you and I can already tell you’re full of shit.” His grunted breathing stops and there’s a swift rising of colour from his neck to his forehead. “You’re too short to be a giant. And ugly,” she adds, purely out of spite for his having interrupted her sleep. 

“I will rip your eyes from your head and piss in the sockets!” Frothy spit flies from his mouth as he yells. “I will violate you and when I am sated I will peel your skin from your flesh and _ eat _you!” Anger has made him surprisingly coherent.

“That’s disgusting,” she says, and then spots another potential problem. “I like your cloak, it looks warm.” It’s also very thick and falls past his thighs. “Where did you get it?”

In his overexcitability he rips the fur from his shoulders, throwing it to the side. “I killed the bear with my hands!” Her eyes widen at that, taken aback (and very much pleasantly surprised) at it having been so easy. _ Well, that solves that problem. _ Now the only armour he has is his own skin and desecrated clothing. He’s clearly an idiot. She can definitely beat an idiot.

_ “ _And as I ate its flesh, it wailed-”

“Alright yes,” she interrupts, “you like to eat and kill things.” She sighs, figuring she can’t delay any longer, and readies herself for the fight. “I will take it from you.”

“_You will die! _”

_ Everybody dies_, she thinks as he charges. 

She flings a knife at his eye - he blocks it without stopping - and quickly spins to the right, barely dodging his punch. He bashes her shin with the tail end of a second hit and she has to spring away to keep outside of his reach, slipping on ice as she tries to re-find her footing. 

_ He’s fast_. She shakes off the pain. She will have to be faster. Pulling out her sword _ Vengeance _ and her hand axe Vigga cuts upwards as he reaches for her head, drawing first blood. 

He withdraws his arm, yelling, and she uses the opportunity to get behind him, trying for his hamstrings. It earns her a swift kick in the chest and she flies back until she collides with the frozen earth. The thin layer of snow does little to soften the blow and the combined impact - front and back - leaves her coughing, gasping for air. 

The ground vibrates underneath. 

She scrambles as best she can until he reaches her and smashes his fists down like hammers. She rolls just in time, one way and then the other, as he follows her movements. Remembering the axe in her hand she thrusts it wildly, embedding it into hard flesh. He howls, pulls it out and arcs it high to slice her neck. She kicks her leg up just before he brings it down, shoving a solid heel into his groin and causing him to stumble back. 

Catching a loose rock in the corner of her eye she picks it up as she stands and uses it to strike him, once, twice, three times, on his temple. She dips backwards to avoid a blind swing of the axe and then twists to the side, snatching _ Vengeance _from where she’d dropped it. Using her momentum she rolls quickly, getting behind him again and successfully cuts deep across the back of his thigh, severing the hamstring tendon. 

He drops on one knee and she squats to cut the tendon in the other leg before he can reach behind to snag her. “I’ll kill you, _ I’ll kill you _!” he rages as he hits the ground hard, chest first, and flips himself over with his arms. 

He throws her axe. She sidesteps it easily.

With his legs now useless and bleeding out, Vigga has the time to stand back and catch her breath. “You didn’t even come close,” she says when she’s ready to move again. She wanders over to the axe and then to her knife, wiping the former down in a deeper patch of snow before putting it away at her hip. “That was barely a challenge.” 

Bjarke sits up as she approaches, one arm heavily bleeding, but ready to defend himself.

“If it offers you any consolation,” she says, “you have the honour of being the first-” she stops herself, realising that’s not quite true- “well, the first _ human _ anyway, that this sword has drawn blood from. It’s new, and I’m pleased with it.” 

He tries to grab her when she comes close but she dodges and makes her way behind him, slicing the tendons above both of his elbows. “_I’ll crush your fucking skull! _ ” he shrieks, “_I’ll rip you in half and eat your legs and face and arms! _”

With all his limbs paralysed she grips the minimal hair on his head and yanks him down onto his back. “Don’t go anywhere,” she says, and heads to her little tent as he lets loose a tirade of vile curses. 

Retrieving Kætil’s sword she returns to her flailing rager, stopping just as her feet reach the top of his head. “This is my husband’s.” She stretches out her arm so that the sword hovers directly above him. He quiets instantly — out of fear, or curiosity, maybe even both — as she pulls it from the scabbard. “Before I kill you I’m going to smash your face with the pommel of this sword,” she explains, “because I need your living blood.” He starts struggling to move again, and when he can’t he spits on her top. 

She looks down at the globule and sneers, unsure of what to do. She doesn’t want to touch it, for obvious reasons, but at the same time she doesn’t want his stinky breath to soak into her clothes. She decides to squat so her face is close to his and uses his hair to wipe it away. “I’m also going to do this to you because you’re sneaky and annoying and I don’t like you.” Worst of all, if she hadn’t been woken in time, he might have actually caught her. “You should be grateful for this, you know, because it’ll mean that you’ll be remembered long after you’re dead. You see, after I kill you I’m going to take your bear fur and wear it as my own, and then, when people ask me how I got it, I will say to them, ‘I killed a man who killed a bear,’ and it will make me even more famous.” 

“_Fuck you! _” He tries to bite her, activating her instinctive fight response. Blade pointed at the sky, she raises the sword and is about to bring it swiftly down but she halts, mid-act, as if someone’s grabbed her. 

The wind picks up, and brings with it the memory of Revna’s warning. 

_ Choose carefully_, she’d said, _ a single misstep and you’ll seal his doom for all eternity. _

Vigga remains still, every muscle paralysed in horror. 

She’d been about to make a terrible mistake. 

“You tried to kill me _ in my sleep_,” she seethes, all humour and pity vanishing in favour of outrage. Her grip on Kætil’s sword tightens, frightened, a reassurance that she’s avoided disaster. “It’s the only way you know how to win.” She can’t believe how stupid she’s been. “I bet you’ve done this many times, haven’t you?” she gets up from the snow, _“haven’t you?”_ she screams and kicks him in the head. “Raven starver! You have no _ honour_, no skill!”

Storming over to the tent, she tosses the weapon back inside. “To _ think _ I almost-” the words stick in her throat. She’s as angry at herself as she is at him. “You absolute fart of a man! Killing you would bring no one any glory!” 

Once there’s distance between them he restarts his barrage of threats. “_You’ll die, tik, I’ll see to it there’s nothing left of you when I’m done! _”

“Shut up,” she says as she draws out _ Vengeance _ from its scabbard on her side and approaches him again. “You bellow like a cow in heat because you’re afraid. You’re no berserker, much less a giant.” She holds the blade perpendicular to his throat. He stills again, though his eyes are furious and his leaking blood soaks the soles of her shoes. “I am the shieldmaiden, Sölvig Freyrsdottir,” she announces, “godsblood runs through my veins, and my killing you is a privilege you do not deserve.”

_ “I’ll stab you through a thousand times, I’ll eat you alive!” _

Her jaw clenches, offended as his inability to take his death with a modicum of bravery. “I doubt you even know how to count to a thousand.” Before he has a chance to respond she plunges the sword into his neck. 

His blood spurts high, coating her clothes and catching her in the mouth. “_Urgh! _ ” She withdraws _ Vengeance_, spluttering dramatically to get the taste out. “This is a shit day!” she yells to the world at large, and stumbles off, still spitting, until she falls to her knees and scoops snow to swill in her mouth. 

“Even in death, you’re a pain in the ass,” she gripes once all that’s left is the faint tang of iron, “stupid berserker.” Her braid slips off her shoulder, diverting all her attention to it, and to the fact that it is _ dripping _ wet with blood. 

She’s about to shriek in absolute anguish, but there’s something in the way the air abruptly changes that catches her voice, silencing her. 

Someone else is there, approaching from behind.

She grabs _ Vengeance _ as she gets up, swivelling around to face her enemy in a battle stance. 

But there’s no one to be seen. Not at first, at least, but her instincts have never failed her before, so she waits, body tense, breathing steady, searching the forest until she spots whatever’s coming. When she does, she gasps. 

A boar, enormous, beautiful, emerges from the shadows of the trees. 

Amid soft grunts it sniffs at the air, following an invisible trail - the scent of a fresh kill. It steps cautiously into the open space and, after some hesitation, it begins to make its way, slowly, towards the exsanguinating corpse. 

This is obviously no creature of Midgard: its coat gleams a fool’s gold under the low rise of the winter sun, its tusks are perfectly curved and white as the snow under its hooves. It seems young, but its sheer size, its power and ethereality, would suggest otherwise. 

“Were you there watching the whole time?!” 

It freezes, caught off-guard by her presence. 

“You could have come out and helped me!” She is absolutely fuming. “At the very least you could have sounded the alarm. Even Kætil found a way to do that, and Kætil’s _ dead _! Are you not embarrassed?”

The boar doesn’t move, despite Vigga’s elevated voice and her bloodied face and hair. Instead its eyes, like precious amber, glare at her, assessing the threat she poses to him. 

She is aware it can gore her at any point, but that knowledge is not nearly enough for her to trade her anger for fear. Instead she stares back, standing off against it for as long as she can, before she inevitably gives in and allows her shoulders to sag. “Alright fine, go on. Just because I can’t eat him doesn’t mean we should both go hungry.” 

It continues to remain in replace, ear twitching as it snorts and paws the ground, impatient. 

“_Eat_,” she invites, tilting her head in the direction of the berserker, “or are you too ashamed to partake in spoils you did not earn?” 

A hiemal breeze reminds her of the fact that there’s blood freezing into her clothes so she sends her husband a silent apology. There’s no helping it, her journey will have to be delayed for a little while. Today is going to be a day for food gathering, fire building and, above all, washing. _ Bless Thorunn and her soaps. _

“I will move a little further into the forest, beast, and make camp there,” she announces to her companion. “I have a lot to do, including rinsing the stench from the bear fur I have just acquired, so don’t go near my things while I am at the river.” With that she turns away and begins packing up the meagre items in her tent. 

Behind her, she can hear the sounds of the boar feasting.


	2. The Fish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Contains adult themes including sexual content. 
> 
> Also, see end notes for trigger warning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sölvig 'Vigga' Freyrsdottir = Minako/Venus  
Thorrun 'Axeblade' = Makoto/Jupiter  
Jörundr 'Shipwright' Freyrsson = Jadeite  
Hœnir 'Hair-Legs' = Nephrite  
Kætil 'The Fish' Drengsson = Kunzite  
Revna 'One-Eye' = Rei/Mars  
Ulrika 'Ulla' Drengsdottir = Usagi/Serenity  
Eirik = Mamoru/Endymion  
King Drengr = Prince Demand  
Ragnvaldr = Rubeus

With deft fingers Vigga unhooks the pollock and releases it into the black waters of the estuary. As she does, she hears a disappointed ‘_tsk’ _ coming from her left.

“Why did you throw it back?” Thorunn is sitting against a large boulder, just far enough beyond the water’s edge to keep herself dry, but not so far that she avoids the bite of the freezing sea breeze. She’s lifted her long brown hair from her back and spread it over the rock, exposing her neck to the cold and letting the air cool the sweat on her scalp. _I’m so hot it might as well be summer,_ she’d said. _Let me rest by you for a while, until I feel better, then I’ll return to the fire. _

Vigga’s feet and calves are bare, long numbed by the rising, icy swell, and she’s heartsore with frustration at having failed, yet again, in her task. She wants nothing more than to give up for the night, to abandon the endeavour until she’s forced to think about it again the next day, but to keep her friend company she stays where she is and tries one more time. “It was not the right one,” she says, flicking the string as far out into the abyss as she can. 

“It might not have been so for you, but it looked perfectly edible to me.”

She frowns and turns to make her confusion known. “When we were on the boat this afternoon you said even the thought of a fish made you feel sick.”

“That was him,” Thorunn points to her hard, round belly. Clouds dim the moon and the orange light from their camp barely illuminates, but her smile is bright nonetheless, “he’s changed his mind.”

Vigga grins, too. “Will he change it again in the morning?”

“Probably.” 

“You’re sure it’s a boy, then?” Both women look back at Vigga’s brother, who sits by the fire at the treeline, blond head bent as he rolls strips of white birch bark into little bundles to store as spare torch lighting. 

Thorunn scoffs at his question. “What else could it be? Like all men he is an inconvenience, kicking me awake when I try to sleep, exhausting me with his antics, demanding my attention even though I am busy.” She smooths her hand over her stomach and looks down as if she is talking to it directly. “I cannot wait to have him out, except I fear what trouble he will cause when he is set free upon the world.” 

“If he's anything like his father, then you are right to be afraid.” 

As if summoned purely by the slandering of his honour, Hœnir’s burly self appears from the forest. “Fuck you, Jörundr,” he says, dumping a load of firewood at his offender’s feet and huffily planting the torch he was carrying into the hard ground. 

“Is cursing our only means of transport truly a wise course of action, my love?” Thorunn asks. “Especially when he has all the food.”

“There was no choice,” he says, approaching, “he was insulting me.”

“I speak only truth, Hœnir Hair-Legs, I remember our childhood.” Jörundr chooses some of the recently acquired sticks and gathers them to be tied together for later. “You were Fenrir personified.”

Vigga agrees from her place in the water. “A voracious little beast.”

“I was never little.”

“True,” she admits. “You ate everyone else’s food and you played every game without mercy. Your fury left all the other children crying and beaten.” 

Jörundr grins as he recalls a particular memory. “Didn’t you once put poor Halstein Akesson into a coma for two days?” 

“I did,” he confirms proudly. “He was four years older than me and he started it.”

Thorunn makes a show of moaning. “Oh, great Odin! Spare me such a wild terror.”

“You should pray to Frigga instead to ensure she gives you a girl,” Vigga says, playing into her joke, “we womenfolk are not nearly so troublesome, yet we’re equally fierce.”

“Ha! You fool no-one, sister. I remember your childhood as well. You were a demanding brat.”

“I was a perfect and dutiful daughter.”

Hœnir - who remembers Vigga shoving his face into cowshit when they’d run away from their chores as children - scoffs at how untrue her statement is. “Don’t worry about it, love,” he says, turning his attention back to Thorunn. “It’s good to be a little ferocious, it’ll keep our child alive.”

“Yes, but how will _ we _ survive him?” 

“We’ll find a way,” he reassures, “if it was possible to tame me, then it’ll be so for him, too. I’ll make sure of it.”

That has Thorunn curious. It is open knowledge that aside from being lawspeaker, Hœnir’s father has achieved little beyond drinking himself into uselessness, and that his mother had abandoned them both, disappearing mysteriously when he was very young. “And who could have possibly managed such a feat with you?” 

Vigga’s back stiffens at the question, all humour draining away. In the distance, despite the opaqueness of the night, she catches a flash of bright silver breaking the surface of the sea. It moves like liquid metal, shining as if it were the very moon itself rising to breach through the darkness. “Kætil,” she answers. 

“Yes, it was. When my eye changed colour and the whole town was ready to shun me for it, Kætil was the only who was not afraid,” Hœnir waits for Vigga to catch his gaze before continuing, “he beat me bloody when I challenged him, and then he laughed as he pulled me up from the mud. ‘You’re not cursed,’ he’d said, ‘and I’m not scared of your weird eyes, but your legs are really ugly.’ And then little Eirik began chanting behind him,” his pitch raises to impersonate their King’s childhood voice, “_ ‘Hairy legs, hairy legs! Hœnir has hairy legs!’. _”

Vigga grins for his benefit and goes back to watching the fish. In her mind she can see the smile her husband would have given had he been there, the one that would have had her heart thrumming in her chest: small and secretive, as if he didn’t want the world to know that he knew how to laugh. 

“Kætil was the best of us all.”

She nods, throat tight, as the fish disappears into the depths. He would have been pleased to hear his friends remember him so well. 

A sudden wave of exhaustion sweeps over her, crumbling any of the perseverance she has left. Jörundr chooses that exact moment to call out. “Sister, enough. Come out of there.” It’s as if he sees her very thoughts and she rolls her eyes at it, though she’s not surprised. He’s always had the ability to perceive the truths hidden in hearts, and especially the ones in hers. It’s very annoying.

“Will you ever stop telling me what to do?”

“Probably not.”

It’s old banter, a back and forth they’ve been exchanging for as long as she can remember, but that doesn’t make it any less visceral. “Being born first does not give you a right to order me around for the rest of our lives.”

“Yes it does.”

“I could beat you up, you know.”

“Probably, but I’ll tell you all the ways you’re doing it wrong. Now stop making excuses, come by the fire and warm your feet before they fall off. You can try again tomorrow.”

When they were children she used to be stubborn about it, but she’s already decided to surrender for the night and Jörundr means well. She reels in her line without further protest, beginning the careful process of gathering her fishing gear while shaking life and movement back into her frozen, bare legs. 

As she does, Hœnir squats by Thorunn and observes her hair splayed out on the stone. “Is this helping?” She nods and as she does one of the smaller braids at her temple falls to her shoulder. He reaches out and tucks it tenderly behind her ear. The intimacy of it is both so sweet and palpably bitter Vigga has to look away. “Did you keep anything down?”

Thorunn lifts the little bowl in her hands to show him. “Some of Jörundr’s broth before he thickened it, but watching Vigga has me craving salted cod.”

“Fish?” he asks, surprised, “but this afternoon on the boat you said-”

“I know,” she rolls her eyes, “blame the dragon you put in me. He has me hating the sea when we’re on it, and missing it when we’re not.”

“It will only be another three days or so of sailing, then we’ll be able to walk the rest of the way to your mother’s village.”

“I don’t mind it so much now. Compared to when we crossed the Skagerrak this part is easy, and besides,” she glances at Vigga as she passes by, “we have good company in Freyr’s golden twins. I’ll miss them when we separate.”

“I will catch you something tomorrow,” Vigga promises. “Something good.”

Thorunn knows how much this means to her friend. “For you as well, I hope,” she says without expecting a response. She doesn’t get one. 

“You want more of the stew?” Hœnir takes the bowl from her. “There’s strips of dried deer in my pack, if you prefer.”

“I’ve eaten my fill, have something for yourself.”

He smiles and kisses her belly before making his way to the fire. “Hey Jörundr,” he says, “what does your lover have to say about it?”

“She has a lot to say about a lot of things. You’ll have to be more specific.”

Hœnir shoves him. “I often wonder, when you utter such nonsense are you trying to avoid answering or are you just deliberately being a cryptic, wet turd?”

“It’s both,” Vigga says as she joins them for food, “and he takes great pleasure in doing it.” 

Jörundr uses the stick he’s wrapping the top of in birch bark to swipe behind her knees. She squawks as she buckles, falling on her backside and spilling hot liquid down her front. “Fuck you, Jörundr!” she yells as he belly laughs at the sight. 

Hœnir tosses her a rag from his belt in pity, he’s grinning so broadly she swears she sees all of his teeth at once. “Loki take you both,” she grumbles as she wipes herself down. “I’m going to have to wash this out.” 

“In one of my packs you’ll find some bars of washing soap,” Thorunn says, “I would fetch it myself for you, but now my back is killing me. Take one. You’ll probably need it during your travels anyway.”

“Don’t worry about it. I have my own, I can use that.”

“What your clothes need and what your pretty blonde hair does are two different things. Take one,” she persists, “I made a few as gifts for my family so I have plenty of them.”

“They’re good,” Hœnir encourages, eager to praise his wife, “she puts special things into them to avoid stiffening the fabrics and furs, and it gets rid of blood stains very easily.”

“Alright,” Vigga says, grateful and amused at his enthusiasm. “I’ll take one.”

“Left pack,” Thorunn instructs from her place by the sea, “in the middle. It’s darker than the other types.”

“Why don’t I get any gifts?” Jörundr asks. 

“You get my company.” Hœnir drains his bowl of stew and begins refilling it. “Is that not gift enough for you?”

“Certainly not.”

“Can you take another out for your brother, then, Vigga?” Thorunn asks, never one to be ungenerous, but Jörundr shakes his head. 

“No, no, I was joking, I know how much you already gave Revna before we left. That is plenty.”

“It is nothing,” Thorunn insists, “we’ll be away for the entire winter and most likely the next one as well. The food will have rotted before our return.”

“Even so, Revna and I appreciate it.”

Hœnir uses the mention of the seer’s name to bring up his question again. “She must have said _ something _ to you about our child.”

Being pushed for an answer has Jörundr’s face twist in displeasure. He watches the fire for a few moments, debating how best to answer. “I cannot lie and say no, because you will not believe me,” he admits as he grazes his hand against the sheared hair on the back of his head, “but she didn’t want me to tell you anything.” 

“Why?” Hœnir becomes, understandably, concerned. 

“In case she is wrong.” 

He doesn’t believe it. “Since when has Revna One-Eye ever been wrong?”

Vigga does not miss the glance her brother passes over her. “That’s not the point, she doesn't want anything revealed to you, not until she’s sure.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“So it _ is _ good?”

“I didn’t say that, either.” Jörundr looks over to Thorunn. “She will come to visit you at your mother’s village once he is born, and then you will know.”

“It _ is _ a ‘he’, then?” She dislikes the indirectness of the conversation, especially after he’d just been thanking her for her generosity. “Definitely?” Turning her head she swipes her hair into her hand and knots it into a high ponytail. 

“You seem so sure about it already, I don’t think confirming that part can do too much harm.”

Thorunn _ tsks _again as she struggles to stand. “You and your mysterious seer may do as you please,” she’s annoyed by her need to use the boulder for balance, “but this boy is finally allowing me to take a shit. I’m going to go into the woods and then when I am done, I will bathe in the cold sea, hopefully that will invigorate this aching body of mine.”

“The sun dipped below Mount Mid-Evening a long time ago,” Hœnir says, not liking the idea.

She places her hands on her lower back and tries to stretch out the soreness. “Well, I’m not going to do it somewhere close, am I? That would be disgusting.”

“I should go with you.”

She stands up straight, arms still akimbo, and frowns. “Don’t be ridiculous.” A crown of unruly baby hairs and wayward strands frame her face, making her look wild.

“I’m not,” he insists. 

“Then what do you need to come for?” 

He points to the abyssal forest behind them. “There are animals about. Something was moving in the dark when I was fetching wood, it seemed big.”

“Did it come near you?”

“No.”

“Was it a bear?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“So what’s your problem?” she snaps, “I’ll just take the torch.” His attempts to coddle seem to have fully flared her irritability. Vigga chalks the shortness of her temper down to pregnancy-induced discomfort, figuring it’s best to let her be. 

“A torch won’t be much good when you’re naked and squatting.” 

Two sets of blue eyes bulge at Hœnir’s audacity and then look to each other as they try not to laugh like children at the trouble he’s causing for himself. 

“You don’t think I can handle a stupid fox or deer on my own?”

“No, I don’t,” he says bravely, “you’re vulnerable right now.”

The comment stuns Thorunn into momentary silence. “I’m what?”

Vigga sucks in a long breath.

“I did not mean it in that way,” he says quickly.

“You think I’m some weak, helpless little girl?”

“Of course not.” 

“Just who do you take me for?” she demands. “You think I'm _vulnerable_? You think_ I'm_ vulnerable? Me? _I_ am the shieldmaiden, Thorunn Axeblade.”

“Here we go,” Hœnir sighs, clearly regretting having started this conversation. 

Jörundr leans back and makes himself comfortable, knowing exactly what’s about to happen.

“I am the daughter of the great Leif Olafsson and the granddaughter of the even greater Olaf Grimskull. I come from the strongest line of Vikings that have ever been. My mother could wrestle any unruly ox into submission and my grandfather could crush a man's skull with his bare hands!”

“My love-”

“The year before we married,” she continues, ignoring her husband, “I represented my village in a stone throwing contest and I won it by such a huge margin it has yet to be beaten, and when I was just fourteen years old I fought and skinned a grown wolf that attacked me while I was playing in the woods. It was twice my size and had teeth so sharp they bit through my knife blade. _Olaf_ didn't even kill his first wolf until after he was married! I did it just after I came of age. How many wolves have _you_ killed, Hœnir Hair-Legs?"

“None,” he sighs.

“None, exactly. ‘Vulnerable’ he calls me, _ha!_ And when I was even younger than _ that _ I carried my entire family out of our burning house, including my father, who was passed out and as big as a tree!”

“Leif Olafsson is, indeed, very large,” Vigga agrees, recalling his hulking form. Hœnir shoots her a look that screams bloody murder and only has her grinning even more.

“I once battled seven men at the same time, killing them all with only my axe and hatchet.”

“Yes, Thorunn,” Hœnir says, “it’s a famous story.”

“One of them was Ingvar Goldbeard.”

“We know.”

“I bathed in their blood as they fell, one by one, sacrificing each of them to a different god.” Her fist clenches at the memory. “Hel was filled that day with their woeful bleating!”

“I’m sure it was.”

“And, _ I _ was also the only one brave enough to venture out and rescue you when you were dying in that blizzard-”

“I was _ not _ dying.”

“You _ were _dying,” she insists. “You were freezing and delusional because you’d lost all your equipment and broken your leg. If I hadn’t listened to the pleas of that strange old woman and gone to find you, you would have been dead before the night fell.”

“You’re making it seem worse than it was.”

“When I found you, you were convinced I was a Valkyrie come to take you to Valhalla.”

“That sounds like dying to me,” Jörundr interjects. 

Hœnir turns aggressively onto him. “What would you know about it? You weren’t even there.”

“I’m just saying, from how Thorunn describes it, it seems like you probably were.”

“Shut up.”

Vigga can’t resist the opportunity to stir the pot of trouble, either. “Let’s also not forget about the fact that you impregnated Thorunn _ during _ a raid, and she still fought very well.” 

“Exactly!”

“I’ve apologised for it enough times!” he calls out, defending himself, but Vigga’s already wandered down to the waterline and thus removed herself from the conversation. He looks to his wife for validation. “I can't help it if I’m virile. And it’s not as if you couldn’t have said no, either.” 

“Even so,” Thorunn says, “in spite of my condition, I still managed to murder many warriors.”

“You did,” he admits, “there is no lie in it, and your kill count was higher than some of the others’ who journeyed with us.”

“I don’t need you to tell me that, I know it already. I have survived a plague, Hœnir, I have survived outlaws, famine, raids, monsters and beasts, but Odin protect me as I face my greatest danger yet: going into the woods at night without my husband holding my tiny hand!”

He huffs. “I only meant that since you are very close to birthing our first child, and as it is clearly all my fault that you are in this state, I am willing, as your husband, to aid and protect you.”

“I think I can manage basic hygiene by myself.”

“Fine. Just take my hand axe,” he says, thoroughly aggravated by her stubbornness. 

“I don’t need it, and if I did I would take my own.”

“Woman!” he roars, throwing down his wooden spoon as he stands. “Why don’t you ever do anything I ask?”

Unaffected by his display of frustration Thorunn walks up to him, glaring unflinchingly at both his left blue eye and his right brown one. “What?” Her tone is suddenly low and there’s a smug grin twisting her lips. “You think you can tell me what to do and I’ll just take it like some obedient little wife?”

Hœnir’s mouth tightens into a pale line and his breathing becomes heavy.

“What’s going on?” Vigga asks as she makes her way back from the sea with a wet shirt in one hand and a new one on her person. 

Jörundr gets up from his place by the fire and heads towards her, figuring it’s best to give the couple their distance. “Our friends are flirting, and it’s making me uncomfortable.”

Vigga snorts. “He’d better not be, the first child hasn’t come out yet and he already wants to put in a second?”

“He’ll be disappointed,” Thorunn says without looking away from her husband. “I’m not in the mood, and even if I was, he doesn’t deserve it.”

“Maybe I’ll find someone more willing, then,” he suggests, his voice hoarse. 

Thorunn makes the point of standing up straighter and takes in a slow, deliberately deep breath. “Go ahead,” she says as his gaze drops down to her breasts. “See if there’s anyone else who’ll tolerate you for more than a day.”

He gives in, his face cracking into a knowing grin as he leans over her protruding belly and pulls her into a long kiss. “You’re the most pig-headed woman I have ever met,” he says when they break apart.

She unplants the torch he’d taken with him when he’d gone to collect firewood. “Yes, I am,” she declares, and then disappears into the forest. 

When she’s gone Hœnir turns his attention to the pot and enthusiastically scoops the last of the stew into his bowl. “Got any of that foreign wine left?” He’s practically exuberant. 

Jörundr returns to his place by the fire and hands over the skin, utterly bemused by the whole thing. “You know she’s going to take a shit, right? How can you be sexually aroused right now?”

“Mud, shit, piss, blood, old clothes, I don’t care. She’s as fierce as the god of thunder himself. How could I _ not _ be?”

Vigga shakes her head, her mood lifting marginally at the stupidity she’s witnessing. “I’m going to sleep,” she says as she sets up two sticks by the fire to dry her shirt on. “Goodnight, idiots.”

* * *

_ She’s frowning at the items littering the bed, displeased at their not immediately identifying themselves as things she needs to take with her on the voyage. “What’s wrong?” The question comes from behind, deep voiced and curious. _

_ She leans back into the broadness of him, the top of her head slotting perfectly under his chin. “I don’t like this. I don’t like leaving you behind.” _

_ “I know,” he circles her waist with his arms, “but with Ulla’s pregnancy and Eirik insisting on staying home, things are complicated. Especially now with my uncle Ragnvaldr’s return.” _

_ “They’re having their first child and he wants to see its birth. We cannot really blame Eirik for his decision to stay.” _

_ “I don’t, but I can’t deny the truth: with most of the men going raiding with you he will stand out even more here, draw unnecessary attention to himself. His mere presence in the longhouse irks my father, Ragnvaldr’s never liked him either, and now his will be one of the only faces they’ll see for months. Someone has to stay to keep the peace between them all.” _

_ She doesn’t need him to explain further. It’s not as if she isn’t already aware of how precarious the situation is. She has a potential solution to it, too, but it’s not ideal and even if it works, it’ll only delay the inevitable blowout. “If you really want to keep Eirik away from your father and uncle then he must go.” _

_ “He will not,” he says, helpless. _

_ “He might if you insist on it and go with him. Tempt him with the idea of the two of you raiding together one final time before fatherhood changes everything. He follows your lead - if you’re comfortable enough to leave, it might reassure him that it’s safe for him to do so as well. It might be enough to convince him. He’s not stupid, he knows how your father feels and what trouble it will cause by staying.” _

_ Kætil sighs. She’s noticed the tension running through him over the past few days, felt it build as the date of her leaving approaches. She can feel it now in the way he holds her, seeking comfort, strength. She does not want to leave him like this, there’s a feeling in her gut that’s begging her to stay and keep watch. She fears for him, and she doesn’t know why. _

_ “Does he?” he whispers eventually, though it’s barely heard. It echoes through her like a scream in a cave. _

_ She pretends not to hear it, passing off his despair as if she does not know what dark secret has prompted it. “Plenty of men have travelled far away and left their pregnant wives behind.” She runs her fingers along the length of his arm. Soothing. “It wouldn’t be so unreasonable for him to go with you.” _

_ “I don’t think it’ll work. He won't leave Ulla alone.” _

_ “She won’t be alone.” King Drengr’s never kept his low opinion of his daughter hidden and Ulla has always taken his disappointment to heart, blaming herself for his criticism. Upon her marriage to Eirik his cruelty only worsened, turning spiteful; to leave her now, in such a fragile state and with no support, would be like tossing a lone chicken into a den of foxes. “I will remain here of course, to help take care of her.” _

_ “That would still mean we’d be separated, and between the two of us it would hurt you more not to go.” _

_ He's right, but not entirely. “Ulla is more than a sister-in-law, you know that. It’s no sacrifice to remain with her,” she reassures, “especially if it prevents strife. If we’re going to be separated then surely the better course would be to have Eirik gone as well?” _

_ Kætil doesn’t answer immediately, mulling the option over in his head. He has more in common with his little sister than he realises - like Ulla, he’s a mountain in the face of outward adversity but he cannot bear the pain of his family fighting amongst themselves. He will do anything to keep the peace. “Eirik would refuse, anyway,” he says, once he’s run through it in his head. “It’s not just about my father, it’s about his own parents and what they did to him. He wants to be present when the baby’s born, and you know how single minded he is about providing for Ulla. The lure of adventuring with me will not be enough to change his decision.” _

_ “Is his dedication to his family so terrible?” she asks, tilting her head to glance up at him. “Is his love for his wife not something to admire?” _

_ “That’s not it.” _

_ “I’m teasing you, Kætil.” _

_ “Are you?” _

_ “I want to see you smile,” she turns in his arms to face him. “Tell me, husband, if it were me with child, could you leave me behind for glory and treasure, with no guarantee of return?” _

_ “Is that not what you just suggested I convince Eirik to do?” _

_ “It is, because it’ll mean he’s less likely to end up murdered by Drengr-” _

_ “Sölvig-” he hates it when she makes jokes about his father, his sense of honour will not allow it. _

_ “-but now I’m asking if you could do it. Would you leave me behind if I needed you?” _

_ “Of course not.” _

_ “Then neither will I. You expect me to go off raiding by myself while you stay here to watch over your sister and keep the peace between your feuding father and brother-in-law, as if they are the children and you their parent. But I can’t, not when you need my help. I will stay with you, Kætil, I’ll share your burden and take care of Ulla.” _

_ “Vigga-” _

_ “I’m being serious.” _

_ “They need the loot,” he reminds her. “You going on this raid is what would help them the most.” _

_ It was the initial reason for their plan and this forced separation, but she’d hoped he’d forgotten that by now. No such luck. “Are you so eager to get rid of me?” _

_ “Never,” he says, not playing into her joke, “but I need you for this. The faster they move out of father’s longhouse, the better it’ll be for everyone.” _

_ “I know.” Eirik had been using his gains from previous raids to build himself and Ulla a home, independent of King Drengr’s fortune and influence (and located, notably, some distance away from the King’s Hall). He would’ve earned enough to finish and populate his farm with the spoils of this coming raid, but his wife’s pregnancy has messed up his plans. “I still doubt they will accept it. It will embarrass him to take anything from us.” _

_ “It might, but Eirik knows it would be better for Ulla and the baby to get away from my father’s anger as quickly as possible. He’s not _ ** _that_ ** _ stubborn.” _

_ Vigga looks at him with some amount of skepticism. _

_ “Then you’ll have to capture such large amounts of foreign treasure that the portion we’ll give them will seem small compared to the rest of our share.” He says it with no hint of amusement, and if she didn’t know better she would believe he was serious. _

_ Even so, there’s some merit to be found in the idea. “You make it sound so easy.” _

_ “You’re the daughter of a God,” he says. “You’ll find a way.” _

_ She sighs. “To help the woman I love so well, I must be separated from the man who keeps my heart.” _

_ “It’s only one summer.” _

_ “A summer without you by my side is an eternity,” she says, doing her best not to mope over the issue, “but you are right, I will find a way.” _

_ “You always do.” _

_ “Ulla is luckier than most, she will have two husbands, hers and mine, to keep her company.” She wonders if she’s actually saying it for Kætil’s benefit or if it’s just to convince herself. “With you both watching over her, what could go wrong?” _

_ He bows his head, touching his forehead to hers. “Many things,” he breathes, “so many things could go wrong.” _

_ His answer has her grinning. It would be much easier for their friend if he was less obstinate, especially in front of the King, but that would be like asking the sun not to rise. “Eirik does have a special ability to make matters worse, despite his best attempts to avoid trouble.” _

_ Kætil hums, agreeing. “He’s one of our best warriors, clever, honourable, charismatic; he could find work in any of the other kingdoms and become famous, but instead he stays. He marries my sister and fights by my side under the name of Drengr: everything he does, he does out of love for my family. There is no need for any of this disparity between the two of them.” _

_ “Your father did not obtain his power with just fire and brute force. He took advantage of the chaos after Harald Fairhair’s death: while his sons fought each other for control over Norway, Drengr was using deception and manipulation, turning friends against each other and using the weaknesses of his enemies to expand his own lands.” _

_ Kætil pulls back and looks at her. _

_ “He conquered a kingdom three times the size of his own,” Vigga continues, “and he did it in drinking halls and at weddings, not just on the battlefield.” _

_ “What is your point?” _

_ “Only that, having held such ambitions and played such devastating tricks himself, it is not surprising that he should see secret enemies everywhere, whether they exist or not. Eirik is a natural leader and charismatic, as you say. King Drengr must know it too, and fear his potential.” She hesitates, feeling the weight of her own advice. “Succession must be at the forefront of his thoughts, especially with Revna’s prophecy about Ulla.” _

_ “That doesn’t matter,” Kætil dismisses. “Succession is secured whether or not Ulla ever has any sons. I am his heir. Eirik could never circumvent such a thing, and even if he wanted to usurp us, he cannot boast of any great lineage to support a claim: he has no famous ancestors, his father is a long-dead outlaw and his mother abandoned him at the old seer’s home to take up with a Frank.” _

_ He’s acting confident for her benefit and she knows it. “You are the King’s only son, my love. And there is no one to come after you. A man like him would not consider his situation as safe as you’re trying to make it seem it is.” _

_ He touches her shoulder lightly. “If fate does not will-” _

_ “If _ ** _I_ ** _ do not will it, you mean.” _

_ “Does it matter? If I died childless, my father’s line would still endure. My uncle Ragnvaldr would become King or his issue after him.” _

_ “Ragnvaldr the Red as our leader,” Vigga scoffs, “what a terrible thought.” _

_ “You still have not forgiven him, then?” He looks grave but she can tell he finds it funny. _

_ “The only reason his hands are still attached to his body is because he’s your blood relative.” _

_ He is on her side, but family honour obliges him to at least try to defend his uncle. “He’s done well for himself with this latest voyage south.” _

_ “And what about it?” _

_ “Does it do nothing to rescue his character in your eyes?” _

_ “Nothing at all. The only reason that raven starver left in the first place was because he was running away. He makes promises he cannot keep and then hides his failures behind a fierce temper. How can he do that and yet still be arrogant enough to believe he is owed any respect at all?” _

_ Kætil tuts at the criticism. _

_ “It’s true. He’s always been like that and he always will be. Drengr is quick to anger, but at least your father has earned that privilege through his own prowess. Eirik might often find himself in trouble, but there’s not a dishonest bone in his body and he’ll die before he disappoints a friend. Even Ulla has more spine. Compared to any of them, Ragnvaldr is nothing but a braggart.” _

_ “Those are strong words.” _

_ “I have strong feelings.” _

_ She watches as the humour leaves him. “You’re not the only one with those,” he says. “I just don’t understand. This hostility my father shows Eirik, this… hatred. I don’t know if you’re right. There are others who could pose a similar risk to our seat of power, but my father does not hate them: Hœnir, Sigurd-” _

_ “Hœnir Demon-Eye, you mean?” _

_ “That was a long time ago.” _

_ “People have long memories. And as for Sigurd, he’s a blacksmith now, who’s married an outsider no less.” _

_ “And what about you?” _

_ “Me?” Vigga asks. “I’m flattered, but I’m a woman.” _

_ “A half god. For that matter, Jörundr is too. Yet there is no such hostility towards either of you.” He sighs. “I don’t know where it comes from.” _

_ Her heart quickens to a thunderous beat in her chest, stopping any words from leaving her mouth. This is the only secret to remain between them, and with her leaving, with the discord brewing within his family, now is as good a time as any to get rid of it. _

_ He notices her hesitation. “What is it?” When she doesn’t answer, he pushes. “Sölvig?” _

_ “You do know,” she says, mustering her courage. “The reason for it all, you know it.” _

_ “Do I?” He thinks she's teasing him again. _

_ “Yes.” She looks at him, unflinching. “Drengr is jealous.” _

_ “Of Eirik?” _

_ “Yes. And in the depths of yourself you know what the true cause of it is.” _

_ Kætil’s grey eyes turn cold, his hands drop from her waist. A warning. But she’s never been afraid of anything, and especially not of him. _

_ “Your father hates Ulla,” she says, low, careful, “but there is a very fine edge between hate and the dark thing he hides inside himself.” Her gaze is steady, watching as his breathing stops in fearful anticipation. There’s no going back now. “The love he bears for his own daughter-” _

_ He draws away from her. “Watch what you are saying.” _

_ “Kætil-” _

_ “I said watch what you are saying, wife.” _

_ “And what am I saying?” she asks, gently, “only the truth.” _

_ He stands back, rigid. “He is your King.” _

_ “I know that.” _

_ “He is my father.” _

_ “And you are a good son, my love, but what he feels for Ulla-” _

_ “Stop.” _

_ She doesn’t. “It’s unnatural.” _

_ “No.” _

_ “You know it is.” _

_ “No!” He’s vehement in his denial. “He’s never hurt her. Not like that.” _

_ “I didn’t say he had, or that he would.” _

_ “He wouldn’t,” he insists. _

_ “I know.” _

_ “At worst he insults her,” he’s never been like this before, so undone, “what happened at the wedding was an exception-” _

_ “Was it?” _

_ “Yes, a lack of restraint. He would never, he would never-” he stops, realising he’s already given himself away, and then he sighs heavily, resigning himself to the fact that she knows. _

_ “Deny it, my love, and you deny that Ulla suffers. He treats her worse than a dog, and he does it to hide his own vileness.” _

_ “Of course you would see it,” he says after a while, his body drooping as the tension leaves him. There’s no point in hiding it from her, and he doesn’t want to, anyway. “How could I think you wouldn’t? How long have you known?” _

_ “Since a little before we were married.” _

_ “Ulla, Eirik - they don’t know. No one else knows.” _

_ “You think I would ever tell anyone?” _

_ He comes close to her again. “No, I don’t mean to question your loyalty, I just-” He suddenly understands his father’s behaviour around her. “That is why he is so cruel to Ulla when you are close by. He suspects your awareness.” _

_ “I believe so, but I am happy to pretend I don’t know the truth of it if it keeps things calm.” _

_ “Such efforts would serve no purpose if he and Eirik come to blows, which they are already very close to doing.” _

_ She understands that, she sees the glares, hears the arguing when they eat together, calms enough of their fights to know how close they are to drawing weapons. “It would ruin Ulla to have such a thing happen. I doubt she could bear the pain of Drengr and her husband trying to kill each other.” She knows how much it would hurt Kætil, too, but she leaves that unsaid. _

_ “That is why, if Eirik is staying, I must stay, too.” _

_ “I know,” she lays her head on his chest, feels the toughness of the wool against her ear, “but it doesn’t mean I have to look forward to our separation.” _

_ He breathes her in. “I hate it just as much.” _

_ “My poor Ulla. It must be exhausting for her to think that everything is her fault. And for that matter, Eirik, too - always blaming himself for anything bad that happens around him. What a perfect and terrible match they are.” _

_ “I try, Vigga, to make things better for them, but nothing ever works. Neither of them deserve any of this.” _

_ She lifts her hand and smooths her thumb across his lips. “Kætil the Fish, caught in a terrible, tangled net. I have never known my father, but I wonder if that is, perhaps, the better situation. Do you love him?” _

_ “Of course I do.” _

_ “Only because you have no choice. If he were not the king, and not your father, would you not have run him through?” _

_ “He is both, so what does it matter?” he says instead of giving an answer. And then, not liking the line of cowardice he’s taken he adds, “I am loyal, but not blindly so.” _

_ “That is at least good to hear.” Knowing there is nothing else to be done on the matter she switches the subject to an earlier discussion. She does not want her last few days with her husband to be filled entirely with talk of gloom and death. “Do you think our baby would have red hair?” _

_ “Like Ragnvaldr’s, you mean?” _

_ “Yes. Or would it be old-man coloured, like you and your father and sister?” She enjoys listening to his heart, hearing it beat steadily under her. “Perhaps it would be blonde, like me.” _

_ “You say these things, but do you even want a child?” _

_ “Do we have much of a choice? They will start to think something is wrong with us if we don’t soon. Your younger sister is having one before you.” And it might well ease some of Drengr’s paranoia to see his direct lineage secured with a grandson. _

_ He uses his shoulder to gently nudge her. “I don’t care what people think. I care what you want,” he says when she looks up at him. _

_ “But wouldn’t you like one? Wouldn’t it put your mind at rest? Wouldn’t it calm the King?” _

_ He can’t lie. “It would, in some ways.” _

_ “Then when I come back, I’ll give you a child.” _

_ “But you know what that would mean.” _

_ She pulls away from him and shrugs dramatically. “So I take a few years out from being a Viking. I can be a plain Dane, tending to farm animals, raising our children. I have a gift for cloth weaving, I can spend my time doing that.” _

_ She is terrible at weaving. Wisely, he does not point this out. _

_ “And when the children are old enough, we can leave them with Ulla, and go off raiding again together.” _

_ “I like that idea.” _

_ “That jewel your uncle gave your father, the one he wears now in his ear. What he does he call it?” _

_ “A diamond.” _

_ “I would like to get one. We could visit the places your uncle has returned from. The east, and the far south. He received directions from Ami. We could do the same. She’s our friend, she’d give them to us, maybe she’d even tell us things she didn’t tell him.” _

_ He draws her back into his embrace, unable to resist touching her when she looks so happy. “It seems you have ambitions greater than motherhood would allow.” _

_ “We could take the children with us.” _

_ “You keep saying ‘children’, how many do you think we will have?” _

_ “Three,” she explains, and then scrunches her face, “or two, because three might be a bit much. Maybe one. At the very least, one. Definitely.” _

_ His lips finally pull at the corner. “Are you sure you really want to be a mother?” he asks. _

_ She’s pleased with herself for making him smile. “I wouldn’t mind it. Honestly, it’s a different kind of adventure.” _

_ “Think about it on your voyage, take your time and decide whether you are willing to give it up, and if you are, then it’ll be your last opportunity for a while, you should enjoy it.” _

_ “Come with me.” _

_ “Vigga…” _

_ “I’m joking.” _

_ “You’re not.” _

_ “I’m not,” she admits, “but I also cannot bear the thought of Ulla facing things alone.” _

_ “So it’s settled. You will go this year, and next year either we will stay here together while you have our first child, or we will all go raiding - you, me and Eirik. Maybe we’ll even convince Jörundr to come.” _

_ “I doubt it, but it would be nice.” _

_ He uses the back of his fingers, feather light, to trace under the set of her jaw. “You like that idea, don’t you? All of us, fighting together.” _

_ She captures his hand in hers. “You like the idea of having children just as much.” Her voice becomes less gentle. “I will make this promise to you, Kætil Drengsson: I will think about it carefully, and I will tell you my honest answer when I am home again.” The little grin of his returns, quickening her heart. “In the meantime,” she asks, “do you want to have sex?” _

_ “You’re just avoiding packing.” _

_ “So is that a ‘no’?” _

_ He whips off his top and begins unwrapping the ties on his boots. “Of course it isn’t.” _

* * *

Vigga wakes with a shiver. Too close to the flames for it to be the air’s chill, she sighs, defeated. The dream has already slipped away, but that’s no escape from the heaviness lingering on her chest. It feels as if this haunted sleeplessness is becoming routine and she doesn’t know if it’s a curse or a blessing: how many can say they maintain such a connection with their loved ones after death? She wonders briefly if it’s possible for it to be both - a gift with a terrible price - and then decides she’s too tired, and sad, and awake, and frustrated, to care. 

Thorunn and Hœnir are on the other side of the fire, cocooned adorably into each other, but Jörundr is missing. She has a good idea where he is likely to be, so she stumbles up, wrapping herself as tightly as possible in her heavy woollen cloak, and makes her way to their faering. 

“You’re up.”

“The depths of your astuteness astound me, brother.”

He ignores the banter. “Something woke you?”

“It’s the same for you,” she says as she joins him. “I thought Hœnir was supposed to be on watch.”

“He was going to be, but I could see he was tired and I was not. What’s bothering you?” 

She’s certain her brother knows the answer to that, but she appreciates his attempt to be kind. “The sky is clear,” she notices in lieu of answering and points to the stars, “look how brightly they shine.”

He takes her cue and doesn’t prod further, but his feelings about the lack of clouds are less positive than hers. “It’s likely to get colder before dawn. There’ll be a lot of ice on the water when we sail tomorrow.”

She hums not really listening, lost in her own thoughts, so they sit in companionable silence, twin heads staring up into vastness, their hands clutching their bent knees in identical manner. The world has decided to be quiet for a while it seems, except for the sound of running water - an ever present reminder that nothing, really, stays still. “I saw him,” she admits when she’s ready to talk. 

“Who?”

“Kætil.” The hurt she feels every time she says his name has been lessening, but tonight it’s felt as if she’s ripped open a healing wound. “I saw him in the water when Hœnir was speaking about him.” She lowers her gaze to focus on her brother’s as he leans back to lessen the strain on his neck. 

“Kætil the Fish. Swift as a salmon, with hair the colour of its belly and eyes the colour of its fins,” he sighs, remembering. “He hated that name but Eirik gave it to him, so he accepted it.”

“Seems like Eirik has always been destined to tell people what to do.” Her jaw is tight as she tries to force the pain down.

“How did he look?”

“I only caught a glimpse but,” she pauses to stop her voice from breaking, “he was beautiful.” She smears the escaped tears away with her palm and gathers herself together quickly. “I need to stay here until I catch him. It should only be a day or two, now that I know where he is.”

Jörundr places a hand on her back. “I wish we could, but winter is freezing the water quickly this year, the longer we wait, the less far I can take you north.”

“What’s the point of going north if I don’t have what I need to free him?” She sits up straight, as if she’s made her decision. “I’d like to stay, and if we find the sea route blocked, I can walk the extra distance myself.”

“And what about those two?” He tilts his head to the couple sleeping onshore. “It’s a long way for Thorunn in her state.”

“Then leave me here and take them with you.”

He dismisses the idea. “I didn’t come on this trip just so I can abandon my sister to wolves and icy cliffs while I ferry our friends in safe comfort. If I leave you here you’ll have to climb Giant’s Bed, you know how treacherous that pass is, even in the summertime.”

“I can go around it.”

“And how long will that take you?”

“So what else can I do?” she huffs, shoulders sagging, “I’m open to suggestions.”

Jörundr places his hands behind his head and looks up again, thinking. “If that was Kætil then he knows what you must do. He will follow us as we sail. When we dock tomorrow night, throw out your reel. You’ll catch him then, I am sure of it.”

“Revna is the seer, not you.” She sacrifices the warmth of her cloak to take her arm out and shove him. “You can’t be sure of such a thing.”

“I can.” He looks at her, blue eyes blackened by the darkness surrounding them. “Trust me.”

Inhaling a deep breath, she lets it loose in a cloud of steam. “Never,” she says as she gets up and hops over the side of the ship, landing on the pebbly shore, “and always. You should get some sleep. I can nap on the boat tomorrow, but you can’t, you should wake Hœnir and let him take the rest of the watch.”

“Hey,” he says, sitting up to call her back, “it’s going to get much colder from here onwards. Where is the hat I made for you?”

She rolls her eyes and counters with her own accusation. “You’re not wearing yours.”

“You forgot to pack it,” he says, intimately familiar with her tactics of deviation. 

Of course, it works both ways and she’s equally familiar with his. “You say it like you haven’t forgotten yours as well.”

“If you could even call what you made for me a hat.” He leans an arm out and idly skims a finger across the water lapping against the boat, as if he hasn't just delivered the most devastating of blows.

“Hey!” she protests.

“It’s a knotted, unwearable mess.”

“I tried!” she says, genuinely hurt by his criticism, “it’s the gesture that counts.”

“Sölvig Freyrsdottir: The Shieldmaiden Who _ Tried_. Now that’s a lay that’ll go down in history.”

“_Urgh. _” She knows what he’s doing but she can’t help falling for it. “If you weren’t my only means of transportation I would genuinely stab you in the face.”

“Oh, I see. So this is all that familial bonds get me? I am not saved because I am your caring brother who feeds you, shelters you and makes you things to keep you warm, but merely because I am useful to you. ‘The Lay of Sölvig Freyrsdottir: The Shieldmaiden Who Tried and Also Abused Her Last Living Relative’s Goodness’.”

The fact that he’s openly smiling is only making it worse. “I hope one day a serpent bites you on the arse cheek, and that afterwards it rots and falls off so you’ll be forever known as Jörundr Stinking-Half-An-Arse!”

At that he bursts out into full belly laughter. 

She tries to shush him, but she’s grinning, too. “You’ll wake Thorunn.”

He nods, agreeing, “Then don’t be so ridiculous,” he says and does his best to stop. 

“Idiot.”

As his laughter tapers he comes out of the faering. “Do you feel better, now that you’ve insulted me?”

“Yes.”

He draws her to his side in a hug as they begin walking back to the fire. “I’m not going where you’re going so I don’t need a hat. But you should have brought yours with you.”

“If you cared so much, you should have packed it for me.”

He makes to flick her ear but she grabs his hand and twists his fingers, having expected it. 

There’s a sudden, gleefully childish feeling of war which grabs hold over the both of them. One more move on either of their parts will push this little game into a full-out sibling brawl, complete with punching, kicking, biting, hair-pulling and eye-gouges. They both know it. They’re both waiting for the other’s first move, daring each other to be the irresponsible one that sets it all in motion. 

Hœnir saves them with an ear-shattering snore. 

They turn in shock, and then freeze in place as Thorunn sits up in a seeming trance and aggressively rolls her husband over into a better position before going back to sleep herself. 

“Well that’s new,” Jörundr whispers. 

But Vigga’s seen it before. “It happened a lot while we were raiding. It’s the only time I’ve known Thorunn get up and then go right back to sleep. I'm not even sure she's awake at all.”

“Speaking of,” Jörundr pulls his hand out of her grip, “I’m tired now. You can keep watch for the rest of the night.”

“What?” she's flabbergasted. “Why me? Why does _ anyone _have to?”

“Because Hœnir was worried enough for Thorunn not to go into the woods alone.”

“Well, Hœnir was supposed to do it in the first place.”

“Do _ you _ want to wake that? You’ll probably disrupt Thorunn, too. Besides,” he says as he makes himself comfortable by the fire, “you were right, I have to sail the boat tomorrow, and while you can nap, I can’t.”

He makes it sound like she’s won the point, but Vigga knows she hasn’t. She hates that, and she hates it even more that he’s using her own words against her. 

“Good night, sister.”

She kicks him lightly in the thigh as she passes him, but it doesn’t dampen his smile.

* * *

_ The door is closed, barely, and thus unlocked, which is careless when they seem to be both out - though Vigga doubts there is anything stealable from a seer’s home that wouldn’t instantly curse the thief once they took it. Goods owned by a woman who, as a child, had her eye ripped out of her head by Odin himself is a strong deterrent in its own right. _

_ As she glances at the surrounding land, she notices none of the equipment has been locked away, either. Jörundr probably figures his tools fall under the same protection, and it’s not as if anyone would have cause to steal half-built ships, so those remain open and exposed as well. Still, it’s all very careless. They should both know better. _

_ She reshoulders her sack of goods and enters the house, mildly irritated by it all and knowing full well there’s a bigger, more genuine, reason behind it: the idea of walking the extra mile to her own home, to further anguish, is too much to bear. She dreads the noise and bustle of the King’s Hall - the contrast of new life and the cold reality of his being gone - and she’s heartbroken by what she’s been tasked to do. _

_ The return journey from this summer’s raid was a long one, a lifetime distilled into twenty days at sea, and when the ship docked, when Vigga saw Eirik at the head of the welcoming committee, decked in a cloak meant to cover Kætil’s shoulders, with Ulla at his side, her pretty head held high and proud, her stomach had dropped. Using the rush of the crowded welcomers to her advantage she’d slipped off the boat and made her way quietly to her brother’s home. _

_ Now that’s she’s here, she finds herself less upset, more exhausted. _

_ There’s a thump and the sound of a groan coming from the back of the house, and then another thump and a cry as something crashes. Vigga’s instincts take over, dropping her sack and pulling out her sword she rushes the rest of the way to the bedroom… only to realise, too late, what’s happened. _

_ Revna’s pinned against the mud wall, wearing nothing but her leather eyepatch and a flushed sheen, her face contorted, mouth agape. One leg keeps her barely connected to the floor while the other is wrapped across Jörundr’s hips, an arm snaked under his to clutch at his shoulder and keep her anchored. Heavy rivulets of sweat run down his spine, flying off the curve of his lower back with the speed of his thrusting. His muscles are tense, defined, and his ass ripples in a way Vigga had hoped to never, ever see. Random objects are scattered everywhere and a little table on the other side of the room has somehow been overturned. _

_ “Your… your sister,” Revna warns, breathless. _

_ He doesn’t slow his rhythm, but he pulls away from licking the salted sweat on her neck to frown, confused. “What?” _

_ “Your sister,” she tries again. _

_ That does make his stop. “I don’t want to think about my sister right now.” _

_ “She means I’m behind you, idiot.” _

_ Jörundr’s shoulders drop and he breathes out a sigh. He twists around to look back, the long blonde hair at the top of his head unbound and sticking to his face. “We’re a little busy, Vigga.” _

_ “Your door was unlocked, how was I supposed to know?” _

_ “It’s not an open invitation!” _

_ Revna uses the break to adjust herself and toss her black braids off a sticky shoulder. “Can we not have this conversation right now?” _

_ Vigga puts her hands up, more than happy to agree. “I’m going to the barn outside, to take a nap. Come by when you’re done,” she says, and then grins, “not that that’ll be very long.” _

_ “Fuck you, Vigga.” _

_ “Poor choice of words, brother.” _

_ “Get out!” _

_ “Fine!” she scoffs, mumbling about his lacking a sense of humour as she leaves. _

_ “Have something to eat-” Revna calls out amidst clipped cries of pleasure as Jörundr starts moving again, “there’s plenty… in the larder.” _

_ Vigga contemplates it for just a moment before deciding oblivious sleep on an empty stomach would be far, far better than eating to the mating noises of her twin. _

* * *

“Jörundr! Hœnir!”

Jörundr’s fingers still, halting the harp mid-tune. 

“Was that Vigga?” Thorunn asks. 

“Jörundr! _ Quickly! _”

The urgency in which she calls her brother has them all get up and rush to the shoreline. 

“You’ve got him?” Hœnir asks, peering through the darkness to try and see. 

“Yes!” Vigga’s struggling with the line. “The sword!” she yells. He nods quickly, understanding, and sprints the short distance back to their camp. 

The soil is slippery with a melting film of ice and she can’t find her footing. “I don’t mean to ask, Thorunn, but-” The weight she’s fighting against is dragging her into the sea. 

Thorunn grabs her just as she trips, righting her. “I have you!” she says, using her own strength and added weight as a counterbalance, “I won’t let you fall.”

A grimace is as close to a grateful smile Vigga can manage as she concentrates all effort into holding on. 

The pounding approach of feet signals Hœnir’s return. “Come, husband!” Thorunn orders, “Take the line from her! Jörundr, the boat!” she yells, but he is already there, having pushed it out, and is setting the oars in place. 

Hœnir whoops as he switches in and almost falls into the water himself. “He’s mighty!” he laughs and deliberately digs his heels into the cold earth, “It’s definitely Kætil. Go, before the hemp breaks.”

Vigga smiles and rushes to the faering, leaping over the sidewall. “Wait for me!” Thorunn yells. The sea might be hateful to her but she’ll be damned if she’s going to be left behind. Vigga reaches out and helps her to clamber over the gunwale. Jörundr’s manning an oar and begins rowing as soon as Thorunn joins him on the opposite side. 

“Direct us, sister, where is he?” he shouts as the boat surges forward into the depths of the fjord. 

“I’m looking!” Under the light of the full moon, and using Hœnir’s location on shore as a guide, Vigga soon catches the glints of silver writhing under the agitated water. “Stop, stop! He’s right over there! Where’s the net?” she demands as she begins searching. “Where is it?!”

Jörundr realises they’re moving too fast. “Hold steady!” he warns his rowing partner, “We’re going to have to turn!” He drops the anchor and the boat screaks in protest under the sudden strain. Thorunn holds her oar as still as she can, releasing a battle cry as she powers through the water’s resistance. The swing of the fearing's rotation throws Vigga off her feet and she lands hard against its side, giving her a view of under the rowing seats. “Ooh! Found it!” She stumbles her way up amid Jörundr’s laughter and gathers the casting net into her arms. 

“Then throw it, stupid!” Hœnir shouts from shore. “The line won’t keep him much longer!”

“I am!” she yells, “I’m just-” she cuts herself off as she tries to see if she’s holding it right. 

“Here, let me help you.” Jörundr bends over the net, smoothing out the kinks and draping it as quickly as he can in the dimness of the night. “There,” he says, “launch it now.”

She does. 

The net bursts open, like a bud to flower, and soars through the air until the stone weights drop it into the sea, hitting the surface with a satisfying rain of claps before sinking over the fish, caging it. 

Jörundr howls to the moon in delight as Thorunn, now lying on her back and puffing with spent exertion, throws her arms in the air and shakes them in victory. 

“Not yet,” Vigga says as she begins pulling the net back in. “We still have to get him-” she grunts, “onto the boat.”

Jörundr stands behind her and massages her shoulders roughly. “Not us, just you. This is your task, sister. You can do it.”

“Did you catch him?” Hœnir yells. 

“Yes,” Thorunn yells back, sitting up, “she’s pulling him in now!” 

“Good! Don’t fuck it up in the last moment!”

Vigga laughs as she struggles against the drag of the net and the weight of the fish itself. It’s only when she pulls it in far enough to it lift it above the water’s surface that Jörundr leans over the boat and helps the net the rest of the way. 

“It’s huge!” Thorunn says as the fish gasps for air and bashes itself repeatedly against the hull. “We’ll eat well tonight and tomorrow morning, and I’ll dry the rest for you to take.”

Vigga clubs it over the head with an oar. “I told you I’d catch you something good,” she says as she whips out her knife and slices the gill. Using her thumb she gathers as much blood from underneath it as she can. Satisfied, she pulls Kætil’s sword close and swipes over the fragment of bone inlaid into the hilt, coating it with the blood. “There,” she says softly, “it’s done.”

As soon as they arrive back to shore Hœnir rushes to the faering and lifts Thorunn out before going back immediately for Vigga, grabbing her and spinning them in celebration as he yells out into the sky. She clutches onto his neck, her heart overrun with joy, and when he puts her down, leaving her to giddily kiss his wife, she does not dare move, allowing her balance to catch up with her transition from water to spinning to land. 

In the corner of her eye she glimpses movement, so she looks out into the sea. There, just floating on the surface, haloed by a moonbeam, is Kætil. He is pale in the white light, clad in shining silver, and even though he is far out into the distance she knows he is relieved, and grateful. 

Jörundr’s approach draws her attention away. She looks at him warily as he carries the large salmon, easily predicting what he intends to do with it, but then his eyes turn their focus to the sea and she follows him with her own gaze. Kætil is gone and the moonbeam’s become dull. 

“Was he there?” he asks. 

Vigga nods, proud. 

“Good.” He dumps the giant fish into her hands. “You can carry it to camp. It’s your catch.”

“_ Urgh _ !” Having had her guard lowered, she doesn’t expect the sudden weight and nearly drops it. “ _ Jörundr _!”

* * *

_ “Is it safe to come in now?” Vigga’s standing in the wide doorway to the house, stretching her neck from one side to the other to alleviate the stiffness. She’s still dressed in the clothes and weapons she arrived in, but they’re hidden underneath the heavy woollen blanket she’d found covering her when she’d risen from her nap in the barn. _

_ “You’re awake.” Revna removes a linen cloth draped over a plate, revealing a collection of meat, cheese, bread and berries. Her lure is effective: Vigga immediately begins to shuffle in and then plops herself gracelessly onto the stool closest to the food. “You must have been exhausted, you slept through the entire night.” _

_ “It’s morning?” Vigga asks amid an open-mouthed yawn, and is thus incomprehensible. _

_ Using context to decipher the question Revna smiles, though she keeps it subtle. “It is.” _

_ She gets over the surprise quickly enough. “That explains why I feel like shit.” Picking up a raspberry she turns it to look inside the hollow. Finding no bugs she eats it, and then goes for another one. “Where’s Jörundr?” _

_ “He’s gone into town.” _

_ She takes a bite from the cheese next. “The sky’s dark grey. It’ll rain soon.” _

_ “He knows, he won’t be long.” _

_ “What’s he doing in town?” _

_ “Picking up some of your things from the King’s longhouse,” Revna says, sitting with her at the table. “A few clothes, a spare quilt and your thick cloak. He’ll block off a section of the barn for you. It’ll be a little cooler since it’s right on the water, but there’s space for a fire, and it’ll offer you - and us - some privacy.” _

_ The mention of the barn has Vigga looking at her sister-in-law with some trepidation. “And what about your birds?” she asks recalling her waking to their being perched close to her face, staring at her with shiny black eyes. “Isn’t that where they live?” _

_ Revna is clearly amused and taps her patch. “They got what they wanted a long time ago, they won’t harm you.” _

_ She still isn’t convinced. “They only got the one eye, and there are two birds...” she gestures the rest of her implication, using her hand to mimic a claw attacking her face. _

_ Revna laughs openly at her fear, though the sound is graceful and soft. “Perhaps you’re right. But if my ravens remain with me because they’re waiting to pluck out a second eye, it’ll surely be mine they’ll take, not yours. And then I’ll know my time as a seer will be at an end.” She doesn’t seem upset by the idea. “It’ll take a few days to adapt the barn into a suitable living space, but we’ll make sure it’s comfortable, and impenetrable to ravens if it’ll put you at ease. Until then, you’re welcome to stay in the house with us.” _

_ She’s always been fascinated by Revna’s foresight. “How did you know I was going to ask?” _

_ “How can you be surprised?” she responds. “You’re in pain, and Jörundr is your family.” _

_ “But it’s not Jörundr’s home to offer. Are you sure you’re happy with this arrangement? It’s not like I’m going to be pleasant company.” _

_ “It’s as much his as it is mine. Stay as long as you want, you won’t be intruding.” _

_ Vigga wants to thank her for her generosity, but she can’t stop the questions from spilling out. “Did you know, Revna? You with your great gifts. Did you know Kætil would die? Why didn’t you save him?” _

_ “I am just a channel for the gods’ words. I only see what they let me.” _

_ “You’re lying. Odin called you onto a battlefield when you were a child,” she says, repeating the old story, “he sent the ravens to collect your eye for him in exchange for your gifts, and they pulled it from its socket with their beaks. You did not go through that just to be a mere mouth. You could have saved him, warned him, I know you could have.” _

_ “I could not.” _

_ “It’s not so bad for you, is it? To have your brother in such power.” _

_ “Eirik is not my brother, we were only raised together by the old seer.” _

_ “What difference does that make?” _

_ “I do love him, but I am not bound to him by any blood bond, just as I am not bound by such earthly things as who sits in the King’s Hall.” Revna shakes her head. “Kætil’s path, his future, I admit that whenever I looked for it, I could never find it, but I thought it was merely fate hiding it from me. Now… now I understand what it really meant. I should have known, you’re right, but I didn’t.” _

_ “So much for your vision of our life. A fish and a boar - how could they ever be together?” She wants to cry, but she sighs instead. “I suppose it’s too late for regret. He’s already dead.” _

_ Revna says nothing and Vigga takes it as her accepting the criticism. “Your arm?” Revna asks, changing the subject. _

_ “An injury from the last battle. I took an axe to my shield and the blow did some damage, but it’s fine. It’s practically healed.” _

_ “But not completely.” Revna lays her hand on the table. “Let me see.” _

_ “You’re fussing for no reason,” Vigga says, refusing. “There’s almost no pain now, just stiffness.” _

_ Vigga is tough, but she’s not stupid or stubborn when it comes to injuries, there’s another reason for this reluctance and Revna figures out quickly what is causing her hesitation. “I have some healing abilities, I can help you. You don’t have to go see anyone else for it.” _

_ She knows exactly what is being said. “How did you know that I know what happened?” _

_ Revna counters it with another question. “How did you know?” _

_ She scoffs. “A mere mouth, you say, I say you’re full of shit.” _

_ Revna sighs, ready to explain again, but Vigga interrupts. “It was Kætil himself who told me.” Of all people, the seer would probably understand best what she’s been going through. None of her fellow raiders doubted her vision, but it’s the pain of the loss, the surreality of knowing: that’s difficult to describe. _

_ Revna hums. “And does he blame her for what’s happened to him?” _

_ “No,” she admits, “but he doesn’t blame you, either.” _

_ “But you do.” _

_ “I do. I blame all of you for what happened to my husband.” _

_ Revna takes it without hurt. “And what about yourself?” _

_ “Me?” Vigga tuts, “I blame myself most of all.” _

_ “You shouldn’t.” _

_ “I know.” She rubs idly at the soreness in her forearm. _

_ “Give me your hand. Let me look at it.” _

_ Vigga is still reluctant. “You’re a seer, not a healer.” _

_ “Jörundr living with me has made it necessary for me to be both.” _

_ She can’t help grinning at her brother’s stupidity. “Is he so bad?” _

_ “No,” Revna defends, “but he cannot avoid cuts, sprains, strained muscles or the sharp stings which follow. Will you let me see to your arm?” _

_ “It’s fine.” _

_ Revna says nothing more on the matter, knowing she’s not going to win against Vigga’s stubbornness. “Alright. At least finish the food.” _

_ She frowns, pushing the plate away. “I don’t want your pity.” _

_ “Then what else can I offer?” _

_ “Your home is enough, and time. I might love you, but I’ll need it to forgive you for what’s happened.” _

_ “We didn’t kill him, Vigga. Talk to Eirik and Ulla, maybe their story will help alleviate this burden.” _

_ “Oh, I intend to,” she says, “but I will need my husband’s sword first.” _

_ “Most of it was burnt away with his body. What was left, however, I kept,” Revna says, “as well as the other thing you will need.” _

_ “Where?” _

_ She doesn’t answer, offering a warning instead. “I know the path you seek to follow, Sölvig Freyrsdottir, and in the end it will bring you only more sorrow.” _

_ “Do you say this as my friend, or as the Seer?” _

_ “As both.” _

_ Vigga nods, understanding. “Still,” she says, “who else can do it but me?” _

_ “Kætil had other family, too.” _

_ “Ulla?” Vigga asks, “Who has a baby and never picked up a weapon in her life?” _

_ “What about Eirik?” Jörundr says, entering the house. “He loved Kætil too, and technically he was family to him, being his brother-in-law.” _

_ “I would think Eirik is too busy ruling in my husband’s stead.” She shakes her head. “No, there’s no one else to do it, and more than that, Kætil came to me. He is trapped in death, unable to reach Valhalla, and he has asked for my help to free him. How could I ever refuse such a request?” _

_ He looks at her with soft eyes, placing one hand on her shoulder and letting her lean back onto his outer hip. “I am sorry this has happened to you, sister. What is it that you need? What can I do?” _

_ She lifts her own hand to place it on his, patting it, but she doesn’t look up at him. “Answers, Jörundr. Give me answers. All I know is that when I left my husband was alive, and when I return, I find his friend ruling from a chair that was his by birth.” _

_ “It wasn’t my fight, Sölvig, it’s not my place to tell you all that happened, and you already know the part Revna and I played.” _

_ She pulls away at that, angry. “You offer help, and when I accept you refuse to give it. Why wasn’t it your fight, Jörundr? He was my husband. Mine. That made him your family, too.” _

_ He sighs heavily. “Sölvig-” _

_ “You ask me what I need.” Her eyes sting. “I need him. I need him and now he is gone. And you will not even do what I ask.” _

_ “I would have saved him if I could, but he did not come to me, and he only came to Revna too late.” _

_ She shakes her head, refusing, _ ** _refusing_ ** _ , to believe it. “And what about the Thing?” There has to be something which could have been done. Some failing on someone else’s part. Fate could not be so cruel as to plan such an ignoble destiny for Kætil, to have him be bested by his own stupid uncle, to die in shame. _

_ “Who could stop it from being called? It was his uncle Ragnvaldr’s right.” _

_ She wants to cry, but she won’t. “You sit here offering me comfort, Jörundr, but what solace could I possibly take from any of this?” _

_ “Is there any to be had?” _

_ “In the stories mother told us, loss and grief was always cured with revenge, but how can I obtain mine? Anyone involved in his death are either already dead or believe themselves to be blameless. I must do something.” She looks at Revna. “Where are these items that you’ve kept for me?” _

_ “They’re in a box at the summit of this hill. The place will be easy to find since I buried them under a rock and carved the image of a fish on it to mark it.” _

_ “A shard from his sword?” _

_ “Yes, and a fragment of bone.” _

_ “Is that truly all that’s left of him?” Vigga’s jaw sets and she pushes, pushes, pushes the pain down. “I’ll fetch them now.” _

_ Having just come from outside, Jörundr doesn’t think it’s a good idea. “A storm is coming, don’t you want to wait until it passes?” _

_ “No.” _

_ His mouth tightens into a line, but he doesn’t fight her. “Do what you think is best, sister. I will go with you if you want.” _

_ She gets up and folds the blanket. “Lend me your cloak.” _

_ He understands her meaning and takes it off his own shoulders to place it onto hers. “Come back quickly, before it starts raining too heavily. You’re a beast when you’re sick.” _

_ She raises her eyebrow at his coddling but otherwise doesn’t acknowledge it. _

_ “Take as long as you need,” Revna reassures, as Vigga heads for the door. _

_ Jörundr follows to close it behind her. “We’ll be here waiting for you,” he says and shuts her out. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: Suggestions of inappropriate sexual desire (specifically, one-sided incestual attraction).


	3. The Familiar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sölvig 'Vigga' Freyrsdottir = Minako/Venus  
Kætil 'The Fish' Drengsson = Kunzite  
Ulrika 'Ulla' Drengsdottir = Usagi/Serenity  
Eirik = Mamoru/Endymion  
Thorrun 'Axeblade' = Makoto/Jupiter  
Hœnir 'Hair-Legs' = Nephrite  
Jörundr 'Shipwright' Freyrsson = Jadeite  
Revna 'One-Eye' = Rei/Mars  
Sigurd 'Blacksmith' = Zoisite  
Ami Mizuno  
King Drengr = Prince Demand  
Ragnvaldr = Rubeus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art by the amazing Artimas. Check her out here: https://www.instagram.com/artimasstudio/

_ The night is as black as eyes closed shut, but the whole town is awake and no-one’s paying the darkness any mind. Torches, more than Vigga’s ever seen, are what banish their fear of the abyss (that, and the sheer abundance of mead). _

_ The firelight is as eager to dance as the revelers are, highlighting them with the colours of a warm dawn while a mess of spirited songs, scattered throughout town, substitute the warbling of day-birds. _

_ At the centre of it all is a brightly painted dragon resting on top of their highest hill: the King’s Hall. At five fathoms wide and nearly ten times that size in length, it is the largest longhouse ever built, and it is currently stuffed to bursting. With all of its doors opened, it seeps people and scents the surrounding air with an effluvium of wilting flowers and fermented honey, of sweat, smoke, pine and roasting meat. _

_ It is the first night of Vigga’s wedding and she is surrounded by welcome noise and distraction— a direct counter to the lull of Jörundr’s harp and the bittersweet lay he wove, just a little while ago as he sat by the main fire: lovers, brought together by gods but separated forever through the machinations of dark elves and dwarves. Now the music is extra loud and conversation is yelled despite any lack of distance between speakers. _

_ Much of the floor in the building is sloshed to the point of ruin, churned under spilt drink and dancing feet until it’s transformed from hard-packed earth into malleable mud. Its state has certainly done nothing to discourage the cats or dogs, temporarily forgotten by their owners and suddenly finding themselves free to wander the Hall. Vigga observes as they weave through legs, both wooden and human alike, taking advantage of abandoned tabletop leftovers and filling their bellies with scraps dropped in boisterous consumption. Stray birds do the same, and have already begun to nest within the garlands hanging along the wall. _

_ It is a celebration fit for a king, or for his son at least. _

_ It’s also uncomfortably humid and thus musty, hot with bodies pressed close, but the summer breeze will not come to anyone’s rescue, having already gone to bed, and it will be some time before the morning brings a mist to cool them. But Vigga smiles in spite of the cloistered air, watching the spectacle of it all from her place at the head of the main table. _

_ The event seems more like an elaborate festival set up for others to enjoy and she’s happy to allow it. She and Kætil have been in love for so long an official celebration does little to change anything. She had to commission a ceremonial sword to give away, and she now has one in return, which has done little else besides make a decent profit for Sigurd Blacksmith. At most being married means that she must move into the King’s Hall with Kætil and his royal family. _

_ In some ways she’ll miss her childhood homestead, including the nights her now husband not-so-subtly spent with her there. She’d grown up thinking the place was far too small to contain her and her ambitions; when her mother was alive and when Jörundr had lived with them it had been noisy with bustle, beratement and her mother’s songs, and of course the ever present bleating and honking and snorting and clucking of the animals that shared their space. _

_ The house itself had never been cool enough in the summer or warm enough in the winter, which meant that either they could not hold onto each other tightly enough, or she and Jörundr were consistently scolded for running around naked. When her family left her - her mother to Fólkvangr and her brother to Revna’s place - she sold most of the animals and allowed others to sew her land while she trained and travelled to foreign worlds. During that time the little house served her well as a private haven, enabling her and Kætil’s initiation into the realm of lovers and sex. But then he would leave - whether in the dead of night or the morning, or even sometimes in the afternoon - and it would suddenly feel empty, a place where memories and loneliness echoed too loudly. _

_ The King’s Hall would bring with it its own challenges, of course it would, but at least they were new and Kætil would be with her, and that was far better than being alone. _

_ “You’re looking pensive, wife.” The word admittedly sounds pleasant from his mouth, but she’s more interested in what’s encased in Kætil’s large, solid hands: there are enough cups of alcohol to satisfy a full table. _

_ “You’ll be no good to me if you drink all of that.” _

_ He doesn’t bat an eye at her brazenness. Never has. “It’s for them.” The slight tilt of his head prompts her to look across the room. Eirik and Jörundr are sitting amongst a group of friends while Sigurd approaches them from outside. “Are you happy, Sölvig?” _

_ Her eyes snap back to his at his unexpectedly laden question. She is tempted to tease him, but there’s an earnestness in the way he’s asked her that demands serious consideration. “I am,” she answers eventually, but she can’t resist making just a little joke. “Join me soon, husband, or I'll have to find some other poor body to fill the seat next to mine.” _

_ “Anyone would be blessed to sit beside you,” he says, “but it will always be me.” He puts the cups down onto the table and then pulls at her chin, drawing her up to his lips. The kiss is deep, but gentle, and blocks out the surrounding noise until it becomes too uproarious to ignore. She pulls away amid whistling and lewd comments, and for once in her life she finds herself blushing, which is far more embarrassing to her than the public display. She’s also surprised - it’s unlike Kætil to deliberately draw attention to himself, but there was enough alcohol on his breath that she could taste it over her own and, she supposes, today is a special day. “I won’t be long,” he promises as he picks up the drinks again and carries them away, a small smile pleasantly twisting his lips. _

_ Her gaze follows him, soft and love-struck, until she catches sight of a former raiding mate thrusting his hips exaggeratedly and gesturing at the two of them. She laughs in mock-outrage and then picks up a chunk of bread to throw at his head. _

* * *

“Hœnir,” Vigga whispers in an attempt to rouse him without disturbing Thorunn. She’s failing. 

From having slept near him on many occasions, she knows he’s easily woken (although he’ll drop back unconscious as soon as he realises there’s no danger - a gift granted by the gods, surely) and ordinarily she’d be flattered that he would trust her enough to allow himself the vulnerability of deep sleep while she’s on watch. Except she needs to check something with him, _ now _ . “Hœnir,” she tries again, and then more fiercely, “_Hœnir_.” When that doesn't work she slaps his cheek.

Nothing happens at first and then he belatedly reaches up to swat her hand away. “Mnfmn...” 

It’s as awake as Vigga’s likely to get him. “The other night,” she whispers, poking him roughly to keep him conscious, “when you and Thorunn were arguing. You said you thought you saw something in the forest. What was it?”

“Wha...” The fire is low, but it’s enough to see he’s trying to pry his blue eye open to look at her.

“On our second stop after we crossed the Skagerrak,” she explains, “you said you saw something. When you were gathering firewood. Something big in the dark.”

He closes his eye and relaxes his head back into the fur. “Hmnf...”

She shakes his arm. _ “ _ What did you _ see _?”

Her tone puts him on alert and this time he lifts his head. “Why,” he asks, voice low as he rubs the sleep from his eye, “is something out there?”

“I don’t know,” she admits, “maybe.” He makes to disentangle himself from his wife, which panics Vigga into physically pushing him back down, desperate to stop him from disturbing the pregnant woman sleeping against his chest. “_What are you doing? _”

“You wouldn’t wake me if it wasn’t dangerous.”

She’s not sure if he’s being sarcastic. She’s going to assume for the sake of their friendship that he’s not. “It’s not like that. Whatever it is, it’s big, but it- it feels weird.”

He flops back onto his elbow. “Weird as in there’s a bear in the woods and your instincts are telling you we’re going to be eaten? Or weird like you’ve just been woken up in the middle of the night for no reason by some idiot?”

Now she knows he’s definitely being sarcastic. “I had forgotten you’re an asshole when you’re tired.”

That doesn’t discourage him. “Remember earlier this summer when we were raiding and I saved you from being split in two by some child barely able to lift his own sword?”

Vigga sighs. “No.”

“And why is that?”

She debates punching him in the face, but that would definitely wake Thorunn. “Because,” she huffs, “I was already unconscious.”

“Exactly. Now, return the favour and let me get back to sleep. It’s your watch. Unless it’s a bear, don’t fucking wake me again. Deal with it yourself.”

Her pride won’t let the comment lie. “You know I was only knocked out because the gods willed it to be so.”

He doesn’t answer at first, his eyes are closed and his breathing is deep, so she thinks he’s gone back to sleep. “You’re talking shit,” he says eventually. 

“It’s true!” 

Thorunn moans lightly at the outburst and that’s enough to quiet them both down. For a while.

“The gods had nothing to do with it,” Hœnir says, once his wife’s breathing regulates itself again. “I was there.”

_ “ _ It _ is _true,” she whispers. “It’s how I found out Kætil was dead.”

He twists his face so he can look at her properly and beckons her close. “You had a vision _ before _ you were knocked out,” he says quietly, “and anything else you saw after that, while you were drowning face-down in the mud, you probably would have seen later that night when you went to sleep, anyway. You were reckless that entire day and someone got you from behind. The lump on your head had nothing to do with the gods.”

He has a point, but she looks at him square in the eyes and tells him to shut up, anyway. 

“I’d like to, but stupid things keep coming out of your mouth,” he grins, “I have no choice but to correct you.”

“_Bah_,” she says, pulling away, “I’m sorry I woke you.” 

She sits up again and looks into the blackness of the treeline. The goosebumps have calmed, she realises, and her heart is no longer fluttering. Whatever had stilled the air, permeated it with musk and magic, now seems to be gone.

She wonders if it might have been a creature from a different realm passing them by, on some journey of its own. “Go back to sleep, Hœnir.”

But he already has.

* * *

_ In waiting for Kætil to join her at the main table, Vigga has nothing else to do but sit back and watch, so she scans the crowd of wedding guests and as luck would have it, she comes across something utterly hilarious: of all things, sweet Ulla is engaged in a seemingly futile, yet heated competition with Hœnir Hair-Legs. She guzzles from a horn nearly as long as her arm, the beer rounding her cheeks as her mouth fills quicker than she can swallow, liquid gold spurting from the corners of her lips and slipping down the lines of her fine neck. _

_ Despite the ludicrous sizes of her drinking vessel and opponent, Ulla is undeterred, stubbornly focussing on her task like her life depends on it. She ignores Thorunn’s peals of delighted laughter and the growing audience yelling her name in encouragement, but in doing so she also misses the side glance Hœnir shoots her way, and his deliberate slowing of pace to help her get ahead. _

_ When Ulla finally wins the roar of her friends stuns her temporarily into disbelief, her bright blue eyes wide and frozen, doe-like, until she recovers and wipes her chin with her sleeve, beaming like the sun is in her mouth. Amid wild whooping and rough, congratulatory shakes of her shoulders, she throws the horn to the ground and thrusts her fists triumphantly into the air. The emphatic chanting of her name begins again as Thorunn lifts her high above the crowd and spins her in victory. _

_ Thorunn is certainly strong, but the ease with which she picks Ulla up has Vigga suddenly realise how much of a meagre slip of a thing she really is. Tiny, delicate and pale, she belongs more to meadows than to the confines of cavernous, carved wood. Even so, despite booze down her dress and a moon-face plumped by alcohol, Ulla is a sight to behold. Vigga cannot help but admire the way the firelight casts a warm glow over her new sister-in-law’s skin, dewy soft and rosy, and the skill with which it picks out the strands of shiniest silver-blonde hair, turning them rich copper. Though Vigga is said to possess a beauty which rivals that of her aunt-goddess Freya, she knows she will never be quite so lovely as Ulla is now, glowing as she is with the exuberance of winning. _

_ Were she a weak woman she would be jealous. More damning that Ulla’s superior looks is her permanent ownership over a piece of Kætil’s heart, but Vigga is far from weak, and she loves Ulla just as much as her beloved does. It is not in her power to hate such goodness, and she does not think there is a person in the world who really could. _

_ That is, until she spies her father-in-law. _

_ King Drengr. _

_ Tall and almost as good looking as Kætil, his blond hair turned white when young, like his two children’s, but it’s done nothing to reveal his real age. He is a charming man when he wants to be yet Vigga knows his true nature is far more sinister. Those who have been subject to his ruthless greed and survived have named him, ‘Drengr the Demander’, although sometimes she thinks the title, as demeaning as it is, suits his brother better. _

_ If the former is untrustworthy, the latter is even more so. Drengr is a warrior, a conqueror, a plotter of vile but victorious deeds, while Ragnvaldr is a dog nipping at heels behind the safety of his older brother's self-made power, having done nothing to earn the respect he so desperately craves. _

_ She watches them both as they make their way aggressively through the crowd. From her seat it’s easy to see where they’re heading and to discern what fuels the King: rage, alcohol-based in nature, almost certainly. Ragnvaldr, following behind, is even less sober. _

_ When Drengr reaches Ulla he grabs her out of Thorunn’s hold and drags her away roughly from her crowd of friends. _

_ In the corner of Vigga’s eye she sees Eirik practically leaping off the bench to interfere, only to be caught and held back by Kætil, who begins talking to him fiercely. Sigurd blocks from the front, pushing Eirik down into his seat in order to make him listen. _

_ Unencumbered by her new husband’s restraining grasp, however, Vigga is free to get up. “My King,” she calls as she makes her way towards him, “father, will you dance with your new daughter?” _

_ He does not notice, his grip too white, eyes too red, his face in Ulla’s as he shames her with words so furiously uttered spit flies out of his mouth and quiets all those surrounding them. _

_ Vigga tries to touch Drengr, to gain his attention, but Ragnvaldr goes for her wrist before she succeeds. It’s a mistake on his part - she knows he can see the threat in her eyes because she can see the panic in his. _

_ But then he remembers where he is and who he is with, and it bolsters him enough to make him tighten his hold on her. _

_ “Let me go.” _

_ “Or what, shieldmaiden? This is the King’s business. Stay out of it.” _

_ “This is my wedding,” Vigga counters, “and you are now my family, Ragnvaldr, but if you continue to anger me those things will not save you.” She frowns, noticing his ear. “Is that Sigurd’s ruby?” _

_ They’re interrupted by a loud yelp, as if a dog has been stepped on. They find Ulla on the floor, Drengr’s closed hand raised high and falling. _

_ Trapped by Ragnvaldr, Vigga knees him in the groin with uninhibited force and shoves him out of the way. When she reaches Drengr’s back she wraps her arms underneath his and pulls him from behind. As her King she cannot risk doing more. “Don’t hurt her!” she begs as he shrugs her off violently and turns back to Ulla, raising his fist again. _

_ Just as he is about to strike, his arm is stopped. He looks up, furious at whoever would dare such a thing. _

_ Kætil. _

_ A hush spreads across the Hall, rendering the populace silent as they watch and wait to see who will win the clash of wills. “Release me, boy. Release me now or so help me, you will regret it.” Drengr is drunk but he’s astute enough to see that if he gets into a fight with his son, he will lose. It makes him even angrier, but Vigga can see immediately that this is a different kind of fury - not temper-born, quickly dispersed, but something far more threatening. _

_ To spare his father further embarrassment Kætil does as he is told. “Whatever wrong your daughter has committed, can it not be corrected in the morning, in private?” he asks quietly, eyes cast down. _

_ Drengr’s blue eyes flicker briefly. Vigga does not have to wonder what causes the distraction, because she sees it, too. Sigurd and Hœnir are dragging an unwilling Eirik outside. She sympathises with the latter’s distress, but she thinks him a fool for being so open about his attachment, especially considering how obviously possessive Drengr is of Ulla. The King knows what this reaction implies - he might be angry and inebriated but he is never to be underestimated - he will not ignore it. Eirik, she thinks, has just made a very powerful enemy. Of all the terrible things which have just happened, this is by far the worst. _

_ Behind her she feels the approaching presence of her brother. “My King,” Jörundr exclaims, loud enough to grab the whole crowd’s attention, “Revna wishes to deliver a message for the newlyweds. Will you let her address them here?” _

_ Drengr watches him carefully, flitting his gaze between his own brother, who is still on the floor, and the people who surround him. They are his subjects, yes, but all of them are friends of his son. “Who am I to refuse the seeress?” he asks with an overly pleasant smile and turns to make his way to the main table. _

_ Vigga does not miss the glare both she and Kætil receive as he moves. “Get her to bed,” he orders and then grabs the first blonde girl within his reach. “Come, sit with your King. No one should be alone at a wedding.” _

_ Having been given permission, Thorunn does not wait for further instruction and picks up the weeping Ulla. ‘Thank you,’ Vigga mouths as Kætil takes his sister’s face into his hands, kissing her quickly on the forehead before letting her go. _

_ When Drengr sits at the table, the thrall in tow, the crowd begins to chatter again but it’s not the same, the damage has been done: joviality is replaced with caution and the music is reluctant to start up again. _

_ Neither she nor Kætil want to be anywhere near Drengr in the state he’s in, but she also knows they can’t hesitate too long, so she takes her beloved’s hand into hers and it’s enough to prompt him into moving. When they join the King at the table, Kætil to Drengr’s right, and Vigga to Kætil’s, the tension between father and son is so thick she’d need an axe to chop through it. _

_ Fortunately, as she notices her brother discreetly sharing a horn with each of the musicians in the building, she realises that the awkwardness will not last long. Vigga’s never known what’s in the drink, but she does know what it’s for, and what state it puts its imbibers in. _

_ Revna’s arrival is imminent. _

_ No sooner than she thinks it, a hot gale blasts through the hall, wiping out the fires from the wall mounted sconces, eliminating all sources of light in the building. _

_ The darkness elicits gasps and cries of panic until the central fire pit suddenly reignites, its flames exploding upwards to beat the ceiling with scalding fists. The screams are drowned out by the cawing of ravens, scurrying overhead, spitting shadows onto every visible surface. Vigga only catches sight of two birds, but it sounds like there are a thousand of them. _

_ With their arrival comes the reek of blood, flooding the air with its heavy tang, and the drummers, in their transient state, begin pounding a slow, steady rhythm. _

_ Her heart steers her thoughts to Ulla, knowing she would love to see this, so she sneaks a furtive glance behind her, hoping that Thorunn’s calmed her enough for the two of them to come out of Ulla’s room and watch. She spies them standing in the doorway of the Princess’ room, both of them gawking adorably in terrified awe while they do their best to remain discreetly hidden from Drengr’s view. She only stops looking when she feels the eyes of Kætil watching her. _

_ He knows what she is doing, and would likely do the same if his movements wouldn’t be noticed by his father. She can tell he wants to know if his sister is alright, so gives him a nod and a reassuring smile, which seems to relax him. He leans in to whisper something but a great ‘boom’ forces their attention to the open oak doors of the main entrance. _

_ Revna. _

_ Her face is unrecognisable, painted and cracked in white bone ash and splattered red, one eye a light violet - blue drained of colour - and an empty socket for the other. Her mouth is a thick, black line running the width of her face, dripping heavy rivulets of blood, deep coloured and fat, down her chin. Her linen dress shimmers, wet, in the dim light. “I am Revna,” she announces, the bones and silver metal which hang from her hair, her neck, her wrists ringing out as the drums continue to beat, “I am here to relay fate’s plan and offer the gods’ blessings to the new couple.” _

_ Drengr stands bravely and does his duty. “Well met, Seeress, come by the fire and bless my son and his bride.” _

_ Having obtained the invitation she lifts a foot, tattooed in runes, and takes a step forward, prompting another eruption of power. Vigga’s heart beats like she’s in battle and she finds herself gripping Kætil’s hand. _

_ As Revna walks she carries a large, shallow bowl, filled to the brim, and as she moves little tides of thick blood form and overspill, blessing the path in front of her. With her right hand she drags a burning, wooden spear. Engulfed in the glow of orange fire it leaves behind a trail of black, smoking soot, drying the ground instantly, turning the mud grey and hard, cracking it open. _

_ It is as if the realms underneath are trying to break through. “I sacrificed a boar outside this hall and drained it dry. You all ate its flesh as the lovers bound themselves in matrimony.” _

_ _

_ **Art by the amazing Artimas** _

_Vigga cuts a subtle glance to her father-in-Law, checking on his state, and finds to her relief that the performance has distracted him enough to smooth the anger from his brow. _

_ Her attention shifts with Revna’s movement, watching as she lifts the hand holding the burnt spear - now no longer than a knife - and tosses it into the fire pit. To Vigga’s surprise the flames, high enough to scorch the ceiling, shrink to nearly nothing and turn blue. “I will tell you my dream.” _

_ Revna makes her way to the main table and dips her fingers into her bowl of blood. “A god’s daughter and a king’s son meet as children.” Vigga and Kætil lean forward to accept the symbols she paints on their faces. “Fate willed their union, taking their two cords and knotting them together too tightly to ever be undone.” Once she finishes she pours the remainder into the pit. It fuels the blue fire, causing it to erupt and then split into two. _

_ Vigga looks on amongst gasps from the crowd as one half of the fire seemingly burns in mid air, forming the shape of a floating, yellow oval. “A boar, golden haired and amber eyed, walks alone in winter. Your father’s familiar, and thus you, Sölvig Freyrsdóttir.” The blue flames below begin to flicker violently, as if blown about by an unseen wind. “The familiar follows the road of the gods, lighted in the sky, until finally, it reaches the sea.” A sparkling streak of white leaps up from the hot waves and dances around the oval. _

_ “Is that not you, my love?” Vigga whispers, delighted. “Kætil the Fish.” _

_ “Yes,” he whispers back, as enthralled as she is, “I think so.” _

_ “There the boar remains, everlasting, with its mate.” As Revna finishes her retelling the fires suddenly disappear, leaving only bright embers and a crowd in awe. “This dream tells me that the gods, Freyr and Freya, Odin and Frigga, each bless the union between the boar and the fish.” Lifting her arms she yells, “Vigga and Kætil! May their love be deeper than Nana and Baldur’s, may they walk together on the same path for the rest of their days.” _

_ With their names comes the ovation of all in the longhouse. _

_ Vigga didn’t realise it was possible to be so happy. _

* * *

Vigga, sitting backwards at the helm of their large faering, leans out so that she can look past the two rowers in the middle. “You don’t have to do this,” she says, “especially if it’s making you sicker.”

A pale Thorunn, sitting at the stern, dismisses the comment. “It doesn’t smell any more, and it helps to focus on something other than this hateful nausea.” She pulls her fists apart under a shimmering, silver skin. “In any case, if these dry before they’ve been properly stretched they’ll become stiff, and you only have one pair of hands.”

“Thank you,” Vigga says, rotating her own piece of fish leather and mimicking Thorunn’s actions, “it’s a great help.”

“What do you plan to make them into?” They’ve hit a low spell of wind, so Hœnir’s taken to rowing with Jörundr to speed their journey. 

“I still have the bones and scales,” she tells him, “I want to make a small purse for when I crush them into powder.”

“Salmon dust?” Hœnir scrunches his mouth. “That’s a strange thing, but then I suppose you’re not on a normal voyage.”

“In all honesty I don’t know what use it might have, but my instincts say to keep it, and Revna warned me to be careful, and prepared.” She switches her gaze to Jörundr, hoping he might have some insight.

“Don’t look at me,” he laughs, “I’m just the boatman.”

Vigga tuts at him, annoyed. “You’re ‘only’ Jörundr Shipwright when it’s convenient for you to avoid answers.”

“Your grinding and saving of fish parts isn’t that odd,” he offers, placating her, “I’ve seen Revna do it. All sorts of things are used when you commune with those in other realms.”

“But _ how _ does she use it?” She regrets not having asked more of the seer before she left. “Will it help me cast a spell? Or talk to my husband? Will it make me do anything other than look weird for carrying it?”

He would have shrugged had he not been pulling the oar. “I don’t know. You’ll just have to find out for yourself.”

“The salmo-” Thorunn interrupts herself, swallowing heavily, and does her best to pretend she’s not losing the fight against seasickness, “the _ animal _you caught,” she says instead, “could only have been Kætil’s familiar. It makes sense to keep as much of it as you can. You have good instincts, my friend, trust them. When the time comes you’ll know what to do.” She takes in a deep breath and swallows again. “The purse will be small, what will you use the rest of this for?” She forces herself to resume the stretching, though her attempts are lacklustre.

“A pouch,” Vigga answers, hoping the conversation will distract her, “to carry on my belt since my bag is too full for the meat you’ve dried for me.”

“_Urgh_, please,” Thorunn says as she lowers the skin again and places a hand on her belly, “don’t mention that.” 

“But I didn’t even _ use _ the word fi-” Vigga’s cut off as Thorunn suddenly hurls the clammy leather at her in panic, slapping her across the face. 

“_Njörd spare me, move! _” she yells as she shoves Hœnir aside and throws up into the water.

“I didn’t realise you’d manage to eat so much at breakfast,” Vigga says, having peeled the skin far enough from her face to witness the horror before her. 

Thorunn’s answer is to throw up some more. 

“Should we stop?” Jörundr asks, who can’t see what’s behind him since he’s not facing her. “We’re approaching an inlet.”

Vigga peeks at the water again and grimaces at the sight. “Maybe at the next one, brother.”

* * *

_In hindsight they should have taken the time to consciously select a tree, rather than simply run to the first one that offered them any cover. The problem is not the oak itself, but the fact that it seems to already be in use, as evidenced by the loud retching noise coming from the other side._

_ Regrettably, Kætil’s first instinct is to swiftly extricate his leg from in between Vigga’s thighs and then shove her into the trunk, pressing himself against her in order to hide her exposed breasts. _

_ “Who’s there?” Her question is only harshly asked because the air’s being squeezed out of her lungs by her new husband’s effort to protect her modesty. _

_ And also maybe because she’s frustrated by the interruption. _

_ It’s mostly the frustration. _

_ “Eirik,” Kætil says with surprise as the figure reveals himself by stumbling forward, “what are you doing here?” _

_ Eirik hacks up whatever’s left at the back of his throat and spits it away from them. “Is it not obvious?” His usually perfect smile is wide and crooked. “I’m vomiting. But I’m finished now. I’m sorry I disturbed you, I’ll go.” He turns to walk away and then immediately trips on a large root. _

_ Kætil catches him long before he hits the floor. “That’s not what I meant,” he says as he rights him. “Are you alright?” It’s the look in Eirik’s eyes which prompts the question, more so than his drunkenness. He’s clearly still upset by what happened in the Hall. _

_ “Of course I am.” _

_ Neither Vigga nor Kætil believe him. If Eirik had been mauled by a bear he’d still insist that he was fine. _

_ “Except, don’t tell anyone I couldn’t hold down my drink. Thorunn will never let me hear the end of it, let alone Hœnir.” _

_ “Jörundr certainly won’t,” she says as she tucks her breasts back into her wedding dress, “and with the mood I’m in, I doubt I will, either.” _

_ Eirik looks at her like it’s the first time he’s noticed she’s even there. “Vigga!” he exclaims. “What are you doing here?” _

_ “Is it not obvious?” she echoes. “What else are couples supposed to do once they get married?” _

_ He takes in her disheveled clothes, her flower crown, trampled and abandoned on the grass, and then he squints in the darkness to see the swelling around her red mouth. “You have no shirt on,” he tells Kætil, and then spots the large bulge in his trousers. “Ah,” he says, enlightened, “you were about to have sex. I’ll leave you two alone, then.” He does his best to walk away again in a purposeful and (somewhat) straight line but he’s failing miserably at it. _

_ Vigga, however, is more interested in Kætil. As she watches him watch his friend she can tell he’s at war inside: Eirik has put himself in real shit with his recent behaviour, and unlike Kætil, the man has no shared blood to save him from Drengr’s wrath. Vigga also doubts whether Eirik truly understands the severity of what is in store for him, especially since there are certain things about Drengr and Ulla that he does not know. Kætil does, hence his clear concern, but her husband also knows that there’s nothing he can do about the situation right now and that, in this precise moment, he has a tempting new wife in his arms and a throbbing member he would very much like to use to satisfy her with. _

_ Vigga makes the decision easy by pulling him towards her and kissing him deeply. _

_ “I want to marry her.” _

_ They separate again at the interruption. Eirik is coming back to them and Vigga audibly sighs. She can tell where this is going. _

_ “What?” Kætil asks, his mind too clouded with a haze of booze and lust to process the shock of the announcement quickly enough. _

_ “Ulla,” he clarifies, as if it wasn’t obvious. “I want your permission to marry her. I want to be with her. I want to make love to her every d-” _

_ “Stop talking.” _

_ “I can’t. It’s no different than what you want to do with Vigga.” _

_ “Except I want to do it now, Eirik,” she interjects, “and you’re killing the mood.” _

_ He ignores her in favour of pleading with Kætil. “I want her to be my wife. I want our love to be honourable.” _

_ “Eirik-” _

_ “I would treat her so well, I would be a good husband, the best anyone could ever have. Please,” he says, “let me be with her, give us your permission to be married.” _

_ Kætil shakes his head, not liking this at all. “That’s not something you can ask me.” _

_ “But your father will refuse the request, so who else can I ask?” _

_ “You’re drunk.” _

_ “Yes,” he admits, as if it’s the most serious news, “and I’m in love with your sister.” _

_ “We can talk about it later.” _

_ “Kætil, I love her.” _

_ “Yes,” Kætil snaps. “If the entire town didn’t know before they certainly do now. We should not be discussing this here.” _

_ “Alright,” he says, realising he’s upset his friend, “alright. But if it’s about the secret, if you’re afraid that I will find out, I want to tell you that I know already.” _

_ Vigga stiffens and looks quickly to see her husband’s reaction. There’s fear in his eyes, and fury - at either himself for somehow revealing his family’s shame, or more likely Drengr, for not concealing his foulness well enough. _

_ “As far as prophecies go,” Eirik says, ignorant of what havoc he’s causing, “especially one made by Revna One-Eye, this is nothing. What does it matter that Ulla will never bear sons? I wouldn’t even care if she never bore any children at all. I love her more than anything.” _

_ She feels the tension leave Kætil almost immediately as he realises it was a false alarm, that the secret remains hidden. “You keep saying so,” he says, annoyed. _

_ “Isn’t that all that matters?” _

_ “Right now the fact that it’s my wedding night matters,” Vigga says. It is not safe for them to continue the conversation when Eirik is in such a state. “Go to bed so I can fuck my husband, please,” she says harshly. _

_ Seeing that he’s upset her too, he bows his head. “I didn’t mean to spoil your night, I’m sorry,” he apologises, and then stumbles away. _

_ Kætil’s gaze doesn’t leave his retreating form. “Maybe I should walk him home.” _

_ Vigga can see how the news concerns him, and he’s always had a need to protect Eirik. She’s about to sigh and let him go, but then she spies a man with long copper hair making his way towards their drunk friend and hope of salvaging the night returns. “Sigurd has him.” She juts her chin to prompt Kætil into looking to his right. _

_ “Sigurd!” Eirik says in over exuberance. _

_ The blacksmith gives them a quick wave in acknowledgement and takes Eirik around the shoulders. Kætil nods, happy to leave his friend in Sigurd’s capable hands. _

_ But then, of all the evil things Sigurd could do, he leads Eirik back towards them. “Hello friends! How does it feel to be married?” _

_ “Is the whole town going to interrupt us?” Kætil demands. _

_ Eirik answers before Sigurd can. “It’s not our fault you chose such a busy spot to fuck in.” _

_ Vigga punches him in the shoulder and Sigurd laughs out loud, surprised at the fact that the comment comes from Eirik rather than the actual comment itself. “You should get this drunk more often, my friend,” he says, “you’re wittier this way.” _

_ “I wouldn’t call that wit,” Kætil says. “Also, you’re assholes, the both of you.” _

_ Eirik turns his head to face Sigurd, his earlier anguish seemingly forgotten. “Did you hear that? Kætil thinks we’re-” he stops and frowns. “You’ve lost the jewel from your ear.” _

_ Sigurd nods, still grinning, and lets go of Eirik’s shoulders to pull his hair back. “I have,” he says, showing them all. _

_ “Ragnvaldr has it,” Vigga says. “I saw him wearing it earlier in the hall.” She’s looking carefully at him, in the same way she knows Kætil probably is, too. _

_ “Did he steal it from you?” Eirik asks. _

_ Kætil turns to Eirik, tutting in displeasure at the slight to his uncle. _

_ “Oh, my innocent boy. As if that idiot could ever cheat me out of anything,” Sigurd says, just to provoke. “I sold it to him, and for three times its worth, too.” _

_ “But-” Eirik still doesn’t understand. “But you got it from the Greeks.” _

_ “I did.” He’s being deliberately vague, and casts a glance at Kætil. _

_ Vigga notices. “Why did you sell it to him?” She thinks she knows the answer already, but she asks anyway. _

_ He shrugs, feigning nonchalance. “It’s not right for me to wear it, I’m not a Varangian guard anymore.” Sigurd claps Eirik on the shoulders again and smiles broadly. “I left home because I had a hole in my chest that needed filling. Now I have a full heart.” His gaze flicks to Kætil again as he talks. “It’s part of a past I don’t need anymore.” _

_ “Then it is good,” Kætil says. “I am glad for you.”_

_“Hmm.” Eirik nods dramatically, as if he’s just heard something very grave. “So what you’re telling me is that _ ** _you_ ** _ cheated Ragnvaldr,” he says, missing the entire point of the conversation._

_ Vigga laughs as Kætil tries to look insulted. _

_ “Come on,” says Sigurd, deciding to be merciful, “let’s leave the new couple in peace and go find Ami. You can stay with us tonight. Something tells me you will need her services tomorrow for the hangover.” He directs Eirik away and gives Vigga a wave at the same time. “Have good sex,” he tells them as he leaves. _

_ “We’re trying to,” Kætil mutters and that causes Sigurd to grin. _

_ “I’m sure you are, my friend,” he says as they go. “If he disappoints you, Vigga, don’t forget your own fingers will do just as well.” _

_ Vigga laughs holding her husband back from going after him. “Ignore it,” she says, trying to keep a straight face, “he baits you on purpose.” _

_ Kætil watches, unblinking and intense, at the retreating figures of the two men. “One thinks he’s funny, the other’s going to get himself killed one day.” _

_ She knows the anger’s fleeting and uses her hand, already on his chest, to soothe. “You think he’s funny, too,” she says, running her fingertips along the line of his neck. “And as long as you are alive, Eirik is safe and Ulla is happy. There’s nothing else to worry about, at least not tonight.” _

_ He turns his gaze to her and her body begins to ache again with want. “Come,” he says, grabbing her hand. _

_ “Where are we going?” Her smile as wide as her face as he leads her deeper into the woods. _

_ “Somewhere where we won’t be interrupted again.” _

* * *

Hœnir is doing his best to rifle through a sack behind him without disturbing Thorunn as she rests her head on his lap, a wet rag covering her eyes and forehead. 

Vigga watches with amusement as he fails in both tasks and Thorunn becomes less and less able to sleep through his jostling. “What are you doing, husband?” she asks when she can’t take it anymore. 

He looks down at her, one hand still in the sack, and awkwardly adjusts the cloth still covering her eyes. “Nothing.”

She breathes in deep, although Vigga is unsure if it’s a huff or an attempt to curb the bile from rising again. “It’s not nothing,” she says, irritably. “What are you doing?”

He gives up on his search and goes back to sitting still. “Forget it, it doesn’t matter.”

Thorunn hums in a way that makes Vigga believe she knows exactly what he's thinking. She glances at Jörundr, who’s strumming his harp, and shares a grin with him over Hœnir’s antics. 

“I’m too awake now, and my back is hurting again.”

Thorunn lifts her hand and presses the rag into her eye sockets with the palms of her hands. “What time is it? Has the sun passed the Undorn mark yet?”

“It’s already setting,” Hœnir answers, “and it’s not even _ reaching _ Mount Mid-Evening before it does. Winter’s approaching so quickly this year.” 

“It’s because we’re heading north,” Thorunn explains, having some knowledge about this due to the location of her family home. “The nights will only get longer.” 

Jörundr joins in with a pointed look at his sister. “If we travel up far enough at this time of year there’ll be no sun at all.”

Vigga blows on the fire to get it burning. “Then I’ll need to make sure I'll have plenty of birch bark to make torches with.” She’s referring to the strips Jörundr’s been collecting from trees and rolling into parcels for her to take with her on her journey. 

“One day,” Jörundr says, “you’ll need to do these things for yourself.”

She doesn’t think that’s going to happen so she ignores the statement. “What do you think, Thorunn? Will this do?” Since the woman in question seems unable to sleep, Vigga doesn’t feel bad about asking for her opinion. 

Thorunn removes the wet rag covering her forehead to inspect Vigga’s work and squints through the late evening. 

Having built the campfire specifically to finish off the tanning process of her salmon leather, Vigga’s tied the logs together tightly with twine, making sure to carve out a little opening on the bottom to allow the escape of smoke. The skins themselves rest on twigs nearby, keeping them raised off the ground. 

“The two sticks closest to the fire - drive them deeper into the ground so that they’re lower than the two behind,” Thorunn instructs. “You’ll have to turn the leather over a few times to keep them from burning but otherwise it is perfect.”

Vigga does as told and re-lays the skins into their new positions. She is not pleased, however. 

“What’s wrong?” Jörundr asks.

“This will be a cumbersome thing to do when it’s a bigger animal.” She doesn’t have a horse travelling with her, so she’s limited to what she can carry on her person. “It’ll be difficult enough finding the right logs to hold the hide aloft over a smoking fire, let alone actually killing and tanning it.” 

Jörundr lets out what Vigga is sure is a huff. “There’s a lot of things that’ll be difficult for you. You might have thought about that before you decided to embark on this journey.”

She doesn’t like his tone. “You’re acting like it was a choice.”

“Your husband’s trapped in a sword, it’s not like he’s going anywhere. Instead of doing this just as winter approaches, you could have waited until the ice started melting. You still can.”

Her mouth tightens in anger. As if she could ever do such a thing. The mere embarrassment of turning back would undo her, let alone the guilt she would suffer in knowing that as she whiled the winter away in comfort, Kætil was enduring his shameful punishment. “Stay out of it. You don’t understand.”

“Of course I do. But your burden is his redemption, not his punishment. It is not for you to carry them both. It does him no good, he does not suffer less.”

“How can I not? If I accept one it’s impossible not to take on the other.”

“He should not have asked you to do any of it.”

“We’ve been through this, Jörundr!”

“If he’d loved you at all, he would not have asked.”

_ How dare he. _Her head knows Jörundr’s just concerned for her, but she can’t help her temper so she shoves him, hard. “How can you say such a thing to me?” she demands, “To expect me to live with such dishonour? What has Revna said to you? Is there some impending doom that she hasn’t warned me about? It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“That’s not fair.”

“None of this is!” The pang in her heart has her look away. “He shouldn’t be dead. I shouldn’t have left his side. He doesn’t deserve to be punished this way, I have to help him, Jörundr.”

He sighs, seeing how it’s hurt her. “I was helpless as I watched my brother-in-law perish, I just… I do not want to lose my sister, too.” 

She has to stem the tears, force the pain and anger away. “Who do you think I am?” she asks. “Am I not Sölvig Freyrsdóttir? Does godsblood not run through my veins? Is it so easy for me to die?”

He sighs, shaking his head mildly as he gives in. “The only way I can think to smoke a hide,” he says after a while, “if you can’t do it the normal way, would be to hang it from a branch.” He grins at the mental image of his twin awkwardly clambering up a tree, hauling a wet bear or elk skin with her. 

As Vigga has always done, she recovers quickly. “It’s not funny,” she says, knowing exactly what he’s thinking. 

“It’s a little funny.”

“I need solutions, not mockery.”

“I don’t have any of the former, but I have plenty of the latter, so the latter is what you get.”

“What animal do you think you will hunt?” Hœnir asks now that it’s clear the siblings have finished arguing.

Vigga shrugs. “I have no idea. I got as far as a fish and now I can’t decide.”

“Well,” says Thorunn as she uses her husband’s knees as leverage to adjust her sitting position, “now that you’ve finished your shouting at each other, let’s all think of the other qualities Kætil possessed.” 

“He was the swiftest of us,” Hœnir says.

Vigga dismisses that immediately. “That is covered by the fish.”

“He was loyal,” Thorunn suggests. 

“Also the fish.” At her friend’s confusion she explains. “Salmon always return to their place of birth.”

“But is that really loyalty?” 

“Isn’t it?” Vigga asks, looking to Jörundr who simply shrugs in the same way she did earlier. 

“To me that’s just knowing where home is. It’s not really the same thing as being loyal,” Thorunn says. 

Vigga thinks she might have a point. “Alright, what kind of creature is known for its loyalty? A dog?”

“_Urgh._” Hœnir places his pinky’s fingertip into his ear and twists it. “You can’t kill a dog. It would be too cruel.”

“This from a man who stabbed a child through the abdomen the day after he impregnates his wife.”

Hœnir tuts. “He was young but he was fully grown, and I killed him quickly. It was his own people’s fault. They shouldn’t have sent him to fight.”

“He was defending his home,” Thorunn says, “wouldn’t you have done the same?”

“I wouldn’t have died,” he answers proudly, “I wouldn’t have let anyone touch my family.”

She smiles at him and cups his bearded jaw in her palm. “No, you wouldn’t have.”

He pats her hand tenderly. “Come, sit here and I’ll rub the pain from your back.”

“Alright,” she says, suspicious and pleasantly surprised in equal measure, shuffling over to sit between Hœnir’s legs. “Why do you never come with us on raids, Jörundr?” 

“Why should I?” Jörundr’s undoing the ponytail at the crown of his head to comb it through. “It’s just killing people for plunder. I’ve killed people before and I have plenty to live off at home.”

“Wife,” Hœnir interrupts, his thumb causing her to bob slightly as he presses it into her back.

“Hmm?”

He stops rubbing to stick his little finger into his ear again and shakes it roughly. “Lend me your earspoon.”

“Why don’t you use your own?” She’s not facing Hœnir so he cannot see the knowing look on her face. 

“Just lend me yours, you’ve got your hygiene kit pinned to your shirt.”

_ Ah, _ thinks Vigga, that must have been what he was looking for in the sack earlier. 

“I’m not sharing it with you. You’re too rough with my earspoon and I always have to bend it back into shape afterwards.”

He resumes his massage. “I told you to get the bone one.”

“The bone set didn’t come with tweezers.”

“It came with a razor.”

“I don’t need a razor. I need tweezers to pull splinters out of your hands when you come to me complaining.”

Hœnir gripes in response, mumbling things about Thorunn’s eyebrows as he squeezes her shoulders. 

“What did you just say?”

“I asked you to lend me your earspoon.”

“And I said use your own. You prefer yours anyway.”

“I think I left it behind,” he admits, finally. 

Thorunn waits a beat, smug, before answering. “You almost did, but I threw it into one of your packs.”

He stops, surprised. “Which one?”

“The big leather one. I think I wrapped it in a shirt.”

He leans forward to kiss her cheek. “You’re an amazing wife,” he says as he gets up to fetch the pack in question.

“I know.” She turns back to Jörundr. “Raiding is so much more than murder and treasure.”

He clearly doesn’t believe that. “Is it?”

“It is,” Thorunn says earnestly. “It strengthens a person’s spirit, forms bonds of true friendship. It-” she stops as she tries to find the right way to describe what she’s trying to say. “It’s a path to glory, to community.”

“_Yes!” _ Hœnir whoops as he pulls out his hygiene kit and raises it for all to see. “You _ did _bring it!”

Jörundr is still unconvinced. “I can get all those things if I choose. One day I might sail away. I might journey to some far off place and in doing so find great honour and glory, but the thing of it is, once I trade being a shipwright for the life of an explorer, I don’t believe I will ever find my way home again.” Jörundr looks at his sister. “I don’t want to do that, not yet anyway. As for camaraderie, I have that as well: are we not sharing our stories with each other now? I have friends at home too, and my Revna. My heart is already full.” 

Vigga throws a pebble at his head. “And what about me?”

“You are a pain,” he says as he rubs the spot on his forehead where it hit. 

“Revenge,” she states, “for your trick with the stick a few nights ago.”

“But what about your place in Fólksvangr? Being Freya’s nephew does not automatically earn you a seat at her table,” Hœnir says, spoon jammed into his ear, “don’t you want to fight alongside Valhalla’s warriors in the great battle of the gods?”

“My father Freyr blessed me with a need for the sea, and a gift for crafting the vessels to journey on it. That is my purpose, and to pretend otherwise would dishonour him.” Jörundr grins. “When Ragnarok descends upon the world, they will need to have ships built, and someone to sail them, won’t they?”

“I can’t argue against that,” Hœnir says, “and in truth, Thorunn and I have been discussing our giving up raiding altogether.”

“With the child coming, I’d like to minimise the risks we take,” Thorunn says, “and Hœnir’s father is looking to step down as lawspeaker soon, it would be good timing for Hœnir to apprentice with him.”

This open talk of Kætil, of afterlives and of the man whose decision led to Kætil’s death, sparks a flame of anger in Vigga. “Does he not have the stomach to condemn innocent men anymore?” she snaps. 

Thorunn’s green eyes widen. “I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t mean to offend!”

“No,” she says, her flash of temper dissipating on seeing her friend’s reaction. “I am sorry.” She looks at Hœnir, apologising to him, too. “You are not your father, it was not you who pronounced Kætil’s sentence and you have every right to talk about your future.”

“He had no choice, you know.” Hœnir’s uncomfortable with the idea of his father being blamed. “The law is the law.”

“Even so.” It seems Vigga’s forgiveness will only extend so far. “What he did to Kætil was not right.”

“Being the younger brother of King Drengr, Ragnvaldr was well within his rights to have Kætil prosecuted for his death,” he defends. 

The name has her spitting on the ground. “Ragnvaldr was less than a wretched fart. He was Kætil’s uncle, he was blood family and the weakest of them all. Out of everything that’s happened, his is the betrayal I can stomach the least. I wish he were still living so that I could murder him myself a hundred times, in a hundred different ways.”

Hœnir won’t let it go. “No one refutes that, but it does not change the fact that Kætil committed patricide, and that his uncle, despite his selfish motivation, had the right to see him punished for it.”

“Husband!” Thorunn says in an effort to get him to stop.

Vigga’s clearly becoming angry. “You talk as if you were there, Hœnir, but you were raiding with us. What gives you the right to say such things?”

“I trust my father. He might be a drunk, but he is a good man, he knows and understands the law better than anyone and he has never lied to me. He did not set up the Thing until Ragnvaldr demanded it be done. And I know he took no pleasure in pronouncing Kætil’s sentence.”

“You don’t know that!”

“I know that he commuted it from permanent to partial banishment, despite Ragnvaldr’s demands otherwise: three years as an outlaw, with three locations where he could not be killed by anyone, and immunity along the roads that travelled between those places. My father gave Kætil his best chance.”

“In the end, what difference did it make? Kætil is still dead.”

“That was not my father’s doing.”

“Fine!” she yells, “Is that what you want me to say? That it was not your father’s fault? That instead I blame the whole world, and myself, for not stopping what happened.”

“Sölvig-”

“I know!” she interrupts, not letting Jörundr speak. “My head knows it, but I cannot help how I feel. He is trapped, dishonoured, and there is no guarantee I can save him. No matter what I do, I will not get him back. I have lost him forever, and my heart is bitter because of it.”

Hœnir waits a breath, allowing her time for composure before he speaks again. “My father told me that when Kætil went to Revna and Jörundr’s house, seeking aid from them and Ami for the poisoned wound Ragnvaldr inflicted on him, he technically breached the rules of his sentence. In doing so his partial banishment was elevated, and when he died he did so as a full outlaw.”

Thorunn elbows him in the ribs. “_ Why _?” she demands. “How could you say such a hurtful thing after what you just heard?”

He manages to avoid grunting as she winds him, but it’s a struggle. “Because it is important to know. I believe him being an outlaw is the only reason he is in his current situation. He can never come back to us, yet I would still say to be hopeful, Vigga. The Gods clearly want him in Valhalla, they just cannot welcome him there until the blights on his honour are erased. You might feel lost, purposeless now, but what you're doing has meaning. You _ are _ saving him and you have the support of the Gods in doing so.” 

“Couldn’t this have been seen as an exception?” Thorunn asks. “Ragnvaldr tried to murder Kætil at one of his places of immunity, that is against the law as well, isn’t it?”

Hœnir shakes his head. “All that would have done was turn Ragnvaldr into an outlaw as well.” 

“Since he’s dead maybe he’s trapped like Kætil, too,” she wonders. “But there’s no one who loves him enough to try and free him. Good. Let him stay as he is, and rot.”

“I doubt it,” Jörundr says. “He’ll likely have been sent straight to Hel with the rest of the cowards.” 

“Even better. If he _ is _in Hel I hope he’s been sent to the Corpse Shore so Malice Striker can chew on him for all eternity.” 

Vigga sighs. “I don’t blame your father for what happened, Hœnir, but that does not change the fact that he was involved. Had he not banished Kætil, Ragnvaldr would’ve never had the arrogance or opportunity to attack. So while, truly, I bear your father no ill will, my heart would certainly lighten if he stepped down and you took over as lawspeaker.”

Hœnir looks to Thorunn. “What do you think, wife?”

She breathes in deep and tilts her head. “Yet another good reason for giving up raiding,” she says, “those are starting to become many.”

* * *

_As Vigga makes her way to the faering she’s surprised to see Hœnir helping Jörundr to load it, while Thorunn stands nearby, watching them. “You’re coming with me?”_

_ “Part of the way, yes. North across the sea, and then a little further along the coast,” Thorunn explains. “We’re heading to my mother’s village.” _

_ Vigga smiles and smooths her hand over her friend’s growing bump. “It’s bigger than when I last saw it. Much bigger.” _

_ “He will be a beast.” _

_ “Thorunn and Hœnir asked me to take them before they knew you were leaving,” Jörundr tells her as he walks past, “and I thought why should I travel twice when once will do? It will be good for you to share their company. The only faces you’ve really seen since you’ve come home are mine and Revna’s, and you’re not going to have much of a chance to see anyone else once you begin this trip of yours.” _

_ “You don't need to treat me like a child.” _

_ “Then don’t act like one, and be polite,” he says, “we have company.” _

_ “Do you not want us to come with you?” Thorunn asks. “Have we asked too much?” _

_ “You haven’t,” she reassures, and then glares at the back of Jörundr’s head, “I am only annoyed at my brother for keeping secrets.” _

_ “You keep just as many from me,” he says. _

_ She rolls her eyes and then turns back to Thorunn. “Nothing is too much for you, you were there to comfort me when I was at my worst.” _

_ “We were stuck on a ship with you for over twenty days,” Hœnir says, “it’s not like we had a choice.” _

_ Vigga snorts. When it comes to Hœnir she should expect such comments by now. _

_ Thorunn sighs. “My love, we’re asking Sölvig and Jörundr for a favour. It doesn’t really help our cause to insult them.” _

_ “I’m only insulting one of them.” _

_ “Charming as usual,” Revna says, approaching the group. _

_ “Ah,” Hœnir smiles broadly at the new arrival, “the seer comes, but is it to bless our voyage or curse it?” _

_ “Neither. I want to kiss the faces of my friends before they leave.” She heads straight for Thorunn and envelops her in a warm hug. “May the gods bless you with an easy birth,” she says and places something into her hands. _

_ “Oh.” Thorunn turns the necklace over to inspect the metal amulet. “Mjölnir.” _

_ “Wear it and Thor’s hammer will protect you.” _

_ “I will, thank you,” she promises, putting it on and hugging her again. _

_ When she goes to show Hœnir, Vigga walks up to her. “Thank you, Revna, for accommodating me.” _

_ “Our home is still yours when you return,” she assures, “but Vigga I need you to be careful. Guard yourself.” _

_ “I’ll be fine, I’m a famous shieldmaiden,” she grins. _

_ “Famous for being pig headed,” Jörundr quips, “and argumentative.” _

_ Vigga opens her mouth to contradict him, but realises that he’s not wrong. “Any advice offered would be gratefully received,” she says, turning back to the seer. _

_ Revna has remained serious. “Harden yourself for this voyage, Sölvig Freyrsdóttir, because even if you survive and succeed, all you will have is more sorrow.” _

_ “That’s shitty advice.” _

_ “It is,” she says, Vigga’s sense of humour breaking through to make her smile, “and I wish I could give you better.” _

_ “I will see you soon.” _

_ “Wait,” Revna says suddenly and grabs onto her arm to keep her in place, “one last piece of advice: choose carefully. A single misstep and you will seal his doom for all eternity.” _

_ “Oh good, that makes me feel better.” _

* * *

After saying his farewell to Jörundr, Hœnir pats Vigga on the shoulder. “Be careful when you venture out alone,” he says. “There’s something out there. It’s been following us since we first crossed the sea.”

Vigga scoffs. He is referring to the odd creature she felt walking past their camp while she was on watch the other night. “So now that you’re not sleepy you believe me.” 

“I believed you then. I just didn’t think it was worth you waking me for it.”

She laughs, not worried. “I don’t think we’ll see it again, if there was anything real to see in the first place.”

“You will,” he says, “it was certainly real.”

“Then be careful as well. I don’t think it means any harm but-”

“It’s not following _ us _, Sölvig.”

Vigga frowns. “But you said you saw it.” She doesn’t understand. 

Hœnir shrugs. “That doesn’t matter. Sometimes I see things that have nothing to do with me, like everybody does. This is your quest and our part in it is over.”

“What does _ that _mean?”

“It means my husband is delaying you on purpose because we do not want to separate from you.” Thorunn hugs her as tightly as her body will allow. “Be well, Vigga.”

“And you,” she says, and then places her hands gently on Thorunn’s stomach. “Take care of him but take care of _ yourself _, too.”

Thorunn nods, understanding. “When we see each other next we will have such stories to tell each other.”

When she turns to Hœnir he envelops her into a fierce hold, lifting her off the ground with it. “The Gods are watching you, Vigga,” he says as he puts her down, “but they’re not always reliable. And you don’t have me to guard your back.”

“I will be careful,” she says. “Look after Thorunn.”

Hœnir snorts. “As if that woman needs my help.”

“She needs you to pick up your backpack and share of the sacks,” Thorunn says, “I can’t carry them all on my own _ as well as _your son.”

“I’m never going to escape blame for this, am I?”

“Not even when you are old and grey and weak.”

He smiles as he shoulders some of the bags and picks up the rest. “Will I even last that long?”

“You had better, Hœnir Ulfsson, because _ I _ intend to live that long and you swore never to abandon me.”

He kisses her temple and then turns to wave goodbye to Freyr’s twins. 

Jörundr drapes his arm across his sister’s shoulders, waiting with her as they watch their friends walk out of sight. 

When they can no longer be seen he looks down at his sister. “Shall we continue or do you want to make camp here tonight?”

“We have a good few hours before it gets dark.”

“Then help me push out the boat, and let’s go.”

“_Urgh_,” she complains, missing Hœnir and Thorunn already. When it was the four of them, the men did the heavy work, but now that it’s just her and her brother she intends to take full advantage. “The other night,” she says as she leans against the hull, “why didn’t you tell them what Revna’s said about their son?”

“I said why already.” Once pushed out far enough, Jörundr holds the faering steady so Vigga can hop in. “Revna doesn’t want me to.”

She waits until he gets in as well to speak again. “I’ve known you all your life, what are you hiding?”

Now that they’re trapped on the boat, there’s no way for him to escape her questions. “Nothing.”

If she did not know him like she did, she would believe him. Instead she raises a blonde eyebrow in doubt. He mirrors her, mocking her condescension, but it’s Vigga who comes out the winner in their staring contest. “She’s worried,” he reveals. “The boy will be fearsome.”

“Cruel?” 

He thinks about it, weighing, careful. “Not necessarily. He could be very great but equally it’s possible for him to be hated.”

“Oh.”

“I think Hœnir suspects so.”

“Why? Because of his own beastliness as a child?”

“You joke, but I often wonder about it,” he says, “now turn around and start rowing. We’ll release the sail once we clear the inlet.”

She swivels around in her seat. “In what way?” she asks, pulling the oar.

“What?”

“Joking about Hœnir,” she prompts, easily falling into sync with her twin’s rhythm, “you said you wonder about it.”

“You know the story of his mother,” he says to the back of her head.

“Of course.” She had disappeared mysteriously one night when they were young, never to be seen or heard from again. Hœnir had no more idea than anyone where she went, but he was not deaf to the rumours. He knew what people whispered about his father: a peerless lawspeaker, once powerful, but a man turned to drink in order to cope with the guilt of having killed his own wife. 

“I don’t think she was murdered,” he reveals. “Do you remember her?”

“Not at all. No one really does, though, it was so long ago.” She draws her oars in, resting the handles on her lap as she unties the leather thong keeping her braid together and begins loosening the hair. 

Without her contribution, the faering begins to veer slightly off course. “Get back to rowing,” he says.

“Give me a moment.”

“Hurry up.”

“I said give me a moment,” she repeats, agitated, “I’m trying to fix my braid.”

“Why didn’t you do that before we left?”

She rolls her eyes, knowing he can’t see. “It wasn’t loose before we left,” she says, finishing the basic plait and securing it. “See? That wasn’t so bad.” 

He chooses to ignore the comment and goes back to their initial conversation. “Isn’t it strange to you?”

“Not remembering Hœnir’s mother?” She didn’t think it was. “Memories fade, and we were very young.”

“But I remember her clearly, even more than our own mother, and I think I am the only one.”

She doesn’t understand. “What do you mean?” 

“I mean not a single person can recall any details about her at all. Nothing. At least no-one I have ever asked.”

“What about Hœnir himself?”

“When has he ever spoken freely about her? He avoids every question about it.”

That’s not a mystery. “It’s painful to talk about her.”

“Or,” he says, “all his memories of who she was have been erased.”

She tuts. “Who could do that?”

“A god.”

She stops rowing and twists around to face him. “Has Revna said anything about it?”

“Revna doesn’t remember her, either.”

“So how do you know?” she asks, skeptical. “And which god would even do such a thing? And since I am asking, _ why _would it be done? You think she was kidnapped?”

“I think,” he says carefully, “she was Loki.”

“_What_?” She could believe that a creature from one of the other eight realms could travel to Midgard and hide their true form from human eyes with a magic spell, but the _ god of mischief himself _… actually, as she thinks about it, she realises that would explain some of her friend’s more irritating qualities.

“I think Hœnir’s mother was Loki, disguised as a woman,” he repeats. “Turn around and keep rowing.”

“But-” she goes to sit forward and then looks back, unable to help herself. “How did you even come up with this idea?”

“Because I saw her. Nobody remembers anything about what she looked like, but I think… I think I was the last person to see her before she disappeared.”

Vigga can’t believe she’s only hearing about this now. “You what?”

“When we were young- will you just turn around and row, please?”

“Fine, _ fine _,” she says as she goes back to pulling on the oars. 

“When we were young I was sleeping in the tree by the pond near our house, and his mother walked past it. I saw her reflection in the water and I think, as a result, whatever magic that had been cast to hide Loki’s true form from others was broken for me.”

“You saw Loki?” 

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“I wouldn’t say so if I didn’t genuinely believe it.”

“Loki…” she says, intrigued. “What did he look like?”

“Black hair, long and curled, and black bearded, the colour of a viper.” 

“But Hœnir’s hair is brown.”

“Like his father’s,” Jörundr explains, “but the face shape was the same. I didn’t realise at the time, because Hœnir was young like me, but now that I see him as a man, it’s obvious that the person walking past the water is related to him. They are exactly alike.”

Vigga isn’t entirely sure. “Could it not have just been his father with wet hair? Hair gets darker when it’s soaked.”

“Farting frost giants, Solvig!” he says, trying to get her to believe him, “I’m not stupid! When I looked down at her I saw a woman walking, and then when I looked at her reflection, it was a man with a beard and eyes that glowed like the Bifrost bridge. There’s no other explanation for it.”

“Well, you didn’t say anything before about eyes,” Vigga mutters.

He grins. She doesn’t see it, but she can hear it in his voice. “That makes my story more believable, does it?”

“Clearly,” she says, but there’s something else about it that she wants to confirm. “You’ve really never told Revna?”

He waits until he pulls on his oars before answering. “No. Not yet, anyway.”

That has her curious. “So why are you telling me now?”

“Because you asked.”

She hums, not believing him, and comes up with a more plausible reason: he’s worried that she’s not going to return from this trip and he wants to clear any secrets between them. 

It’s not like she can reassure him any differently. “Why would Loki have been hiding?” she asks instead.

“Who knows? He’s a trickster, maybe he’d angered someone.”

“Or maybe he just wanted to be a woman for a while,” she muses. “We’re out of the inlet and there’s a nice tailwind. Can we stop rowing now?”

“How are you a shieldmaiden? You’re so lazy.”

“Shut up,” she says, but she can hear him drawing in his oars, so she does the same and turns around to look at him. “You really think Hoenir is the son of a god?”

“Freyr came to our mother while she was worshipping him. He planted his seed into her twice and we are the result. If that is believable, what is so strange about Loki birthing Hœnir and then disappearing when one of his brown eyes changed to blue?”

He has a point. “Perhaps when that happened the magic which hid Loki’s true form from our view might have been lifted, so he had to leave before it happened.” 

“Maybe,” Jörundr says, “or maybe he was just bored and wanted to go back to Asgard.”

“That would be a cruel thing to do, to abandon your child out of choice.”

He unfurls the square sail. “I have an idea about that, too. You know when Thorunn talks about how she first met Hœnir?”

“The rescuing him in a blizzard story? Of course, she told it to us twice on this trip alone.”

“She mentions encountering an old lady who she’d never met before.”

Vigga’s eyes widen. “Oh,” she says as it all starts to make sense. “Oh! Thorunn always said it was strange to see the woman, and for her to know that there was someone lost out in the open...” 

“If Hœnir is Loki’s son, wouldn’t he want to look out for him?”

“Wouldn’t it just be more sensible to save him himself?” she asks, “unless he was creating a way for Hœnir and Thorunn to meet.” 

“I don’t think we’ll ever know the truth, but I believe Hœnir at least suspects, and Revna will figure it out soon enough.”

“Because of his son,” she realises. “If Loki did set up the match between Hœnir and Thorunn, maybe it was to try and temper whatever ill fate the boy is destined to suffer. Thorunn will be a strong mother. ”

“Fate is fate,” he says, “whatever’s to be is already set in stone.”

“I don’t believe that,” she says, “I refuse to,” and then she visibly slumps. “Is it selfish of me to not want to do this?”

He sighs and sits next to her on the same row, facing the opposite direction. “No.”

She leans her head onto his shoulder and closes her eyes, letting the sun warm her face. “At least this way, trapped as he is, I still see something of him.” 

“If there was some way for me to take this pain from you, sister, I would.”

“Jörundr.”

“Hmm?”

“If you ever left home to venture out into the world… you’d take Revna with you, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course, she’d be angry with me if I didn’t, and you don’t want to be on the wrong side of a seer.”

“You said you wouldn’t come back.”

“You don’t think Revna’s anger is fierce enough to reach me no matter where I am? Why do you ask?”

“Would you take me, too?”

He takes in a deep breath, considering. 

“Jörundr!” she chides, lifting her head to glare at him. 

“If you wanted to,” he says, seriously, “of course I would. You used to talk about coming with me all the time. I would sail to islands of giants and into the realms of dwarves, and you would fight off all the enemies we’d face.”

She looks down at her fingers. “It’s funny that we talk about mothers. I had a dream about ours last night.”

“Did you?”

“I couldn’t remember anything about her, and then all of a sudden everything was clear again.” She pulls her single braid from behind and raises it to show her brother. “Her hair was like mine, but it was not so light as ours is.”

He takes it from her and tugs at it playfully, like he used to when they were children. 

“You have her lips and smile,” she says, noticing it. “I have her height. She had rough hands and lines at the corner of her eyes and mouth, and she had a voice that could make anyone listen to her.”

“She was strong,” he remembers. 

“She was _ our _ mother. She had to be.” She receives a soft chuckle and a nod in agreement from him as she sits back, leveraging her body with her arms, placing them behind her for support. “When I sleep I don’t dream anymore, all I do is relive memories.”

“Then that’s your reason for it,” he says. “She liked Kætil. She always knew you would end up together.”

Vigga shakes her head. “This wasn’t about him. I wasn’t even thinking of him in the dream.”

“Oh?” he asks, intrigued.

“We were young-”

“How young?”

“You were a boisterous little shit,” she tells him, mildly annoyed at his interruption, “and I was still taller than you.”

“Already I can tell this is a false memory,” he says. “You have never been, nor will you ever be, taller than me.”

She shoves him lightly with her foot. “I was! There was a period, when we were very young, where I grew faster.”

“Lies.”

“Will you just let me tell you about my dream?”

“Whatever.”

Vigga softens suddenly and smiles. “You sound like her sometimes.”

“Do I?”

“You do.”

He likes that. “Tell me about it then, this memory,” he says.

* * *

_ “Remember my children, if you see a boar, you must not kill it. It is your father’s familiar and thus yours as well.” _

_ “But what if it tries to kill us first?” _

_ She thinks about it. “If that happens then it isn’t Freyr. Protect yourself and make a good meal out of the beast, like we’re having now!” _

_ “This is not boar,” Vigga says. “This is stupid vegetables.” _

_ “Pretend,” her mother says, “we’re rich enough to have someone else hunt for us.” _

_ “But what if the boar is a person in disguise?” Jörundr asks. _

_ “What do you mean?” _

_ “I heard the goddess Freyja turned her lover Óttar into a boar and rode him into battle.” He giggles as he jerks in exaggerated thrusts to emphasise his point. _

_ Vigga howls with laughter. _

_ “Where did hear such a horrible story?” their mother demands. _

_ Having gotten a rise out of her Jörundr gets up from the table and runs in circles, cackling. “She had sex with a boar! Sex with a boar! Sex with a b-” _

_ “Who told you that?!” _

_ “Hœnir’s father.” _

_ “Stay away from him, he’s creepy and weird.” And then she adds as an afterthought, “We do not have sex with animals, ever.” _

_ The very idea has Jörundr grimacing. “I wouldn’t! I was just joking, mama.” _

_ “Well now that you know about it, I’ll have to explain it.” _

_ “Noooo!” _

_ “Sit, this is your own fault,” she says as she drags him by the short collar back to the table. “Freyja was not really having sex with a boar-” _

_ “I’m pretty sure she was.” _

_ “She was not.” _

_ “How do you know so much about this story?” _

_ “I just do, now shut up and listen. Odr-” _

_ “Óttar.” _

_ “Whatever. He had many valued qualities which were _ ** _associated_ ** _ with the boar: he was, um, brave, honourable, a fierce warrior, and yes he was lusty-” _

_ “Ewwww!” the twins yell in unison. _

_ “-but he was also deeply in love,” she continues, deliberately ignoring them. “Don’t forget that part. Both your father and his twin sister embody different elements, especially of love, and it makes things complicated. Just as feelings might get complicated once you’re ready to start having sex with other human beings. Now, when the story says Óttar was turned into a boar, they actually mean he embodied those qualities. It’s not supposed to be taken literally.” _

_ “But,” Vigga wonders, “when we hear thunder, don’t we say it’s Thor wielding Mjölnir? And when the crops grow, isn’t it actually Sif’s hair?” _

_ “Yes, but-” _

_ “And didn’t Loki birth Sleipnir after he did it with a horse?” Jörundr adds. _

_ “We do not have sex with animals!” _

_ “Alright! We understand. Can we go outside to play now?” he yells as he runs out of the house, without waiting for an answer. _

_ “Yes,” she calls out, despite her permission being a seemingly moot point, “but I mean it! Stay away from the lawspeaker, and be careful around his son. I don’t trust those weird eyes of his.” _

* * *

Her separation from Jörundr is more painful than she’d anticipated it would be, but she does have some reassurance in that, on her return, he will be waiting for her this side of the Skagerrak. 

He won’t be going home for a little while, having been commissioned to build a boat in Egdafylki, on the south coast of Norway. The distance between them would be vast, but at least there would be no great sea to stop them from reaching each other. Just ice, and snow, darkness, pits, cliffs, wild animals...

“What happens if you finish the boat before I return?”

“I’ll find someone to commission another.”

“And what if I don’t return at all?”

“Then you will have failed both Kætil and me, the two people you love most in the world,” he says and pulls her into a tight hug to better whisper into her ear. “Revna will reach you in the afterlife to communicate my insults, and probably some of her own as well.”

She grins into his shirt as she tries to force away the pricking of tears. “I’d better make it back, then,” she says as he lets go. 

“Take care, sister. I love you, don’t disappoint me.”

“I love you, too,” she says, picking up her bags. “You’ve been a disappointment since birth.”

“Don’t forget, you have a spare whittling blade in your left pack, and there’s birch bark and twine for torches in each of your bags.”

“I know.”

“Keep your fish well packed, and elevated away from you when you’re sleeping, you don’t want a bear to find you and maul your face, it’s your only good feature.”

She rolls her eyes. “I_ know.” _

“Where is your handaxe? And your sword?” He looks at her hips to make sure they’re secure. “Where’s Kætil’s? There’s no point going through all this if you forget that.”“It’s on my back!” She shoves him, half annoyed, half endeared. “I need you to leave now, I won’t be able to walk away knowing you’re still here.”

He sighs and then kisses her forehead. “I will see you soon.” 

She watches as he pushes the faering out and waits until the boat is out of sight. 

She hates it. She’s always hated being alone. 

But now there’s nothing for her to do than start her journey. Shouldering her packs, she tries not to think too much and begins to make her way uphill. She intends to walk through a dense forest which blankets the valley between the two mountains as it should offer some shelter from the biting wind and take her in the direction she wants to go: north. 

She does not get far when she hears the light thud of hooves on cold, hard grass. Her breath catches as the creature that has been following her since the start of her journey finally reveals itself. 

“Are you my father’s familiar?” she asks the boar. 

It’s ear twitches and she smiles, marvelled by its size. Unable to resist, she reaches out to touch its hair, to see if it’s really made of gold like it looks, but then she hesitates. “Wait.” She pulls her hand back. “You don’t intend to kill me, do you?” 

They stand off until she gives in, figuring that if the gods want her dead, there are easier ways to do it than sending a giant magical boar to follow her around for days. “If you are my father’s familiar, surely there should be two of of you.” Something else occurs to her. “Are you him? Are you Freyr in disguise? You look like you could be him, I suppose.” She’s going to assume that, if it’s not her father directly, it is at least his representative. “Does this mean that the gods bless this voyage of mine? This journey to release my husband’s soul?” The boar doesn’t answer, and she can discern nothing from its amber stare. “If you don’t you should, I am doing this for love, after all.”

It snorts, deep and loud, before turning quickly and disappearing into the woods. 

“Wait!” she calls out and then scrunches her face, annoyed. “If we were going in the same direction, you could have kept me company.” She begrudgingly reshoulders her packs and begins her trek uphill. “Or at the very least you could have indicated the way.” 

To her surprise it reappears suddenly, beady golden eyes watching, impatient as it waits for her. She grins and rushes to catch up with it. “I am known to friends as Vigga. What are you called?”

When she’s close enough to follow it turns its back to her and continues walking uphill. 

“Where are we headed?” Unsurprisingly the boar doesn’t answer that question either. “Well this is going to be fun, I can tell.”


End file.
